The Community Roundtable has released their Community Manager Salary Survey 2014, which was sponsored by Jive. You can download it for free in exchange for your contact information.

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, and this research is truly something that community managers should be thankful for.

I spent some time yesterday reviewing the full document, and I have to commend them on a really useful work. The salary data is immediately helpful to professionals and will help unpaid community managers get raises. That’ll raise the bottom, which will raise the average, which will raise all of us.

Previously: $70,000, $90,000, $110,000: The Salary of the Average Community Manager, Community Strategist and Director of Community

But they also used the survey as an opportunity to draw attention to various challenges that we face in the profession. For example, the discussion of unrealistic job descriptions is smart and completely on-point. If you’ve spent much time looking for community-related job descriptions, you’ve undoubtedly come across a job that either sounded like 5 people in one or had odd requirements. Like a community job that requires 5 years of search marketing experience, but no community experience. In other words, a marketing job veiled as a community role.

The Community Manager Salary Survey 2014 is well worth your time.