Several of my clients have often asked me: "what do other camps' year-round teams look like?"
Although I know some answers anecdotally, I decided to survey camp websites. I ended up using data from 204 camps in 44 states. I started with more, but some of them did not necessarily have the information I was looking for, or the information as difficult to interpret (more on this below).
Of the camp websites surveyed, 161 were overnight camps, 36 were day camps, and 7 were day and overnight combined. The reason that many more were overnight camps is because day camps are more often embedded into larger organizations such as agencies or schools, and it was too difficult to find the "camp-specific" year-round staff on those sites.
Similarly, the majority of camps surveyed were for-profit (140) vs. not-for-profit (64) because the not-for-profit camps are often part of larger entities that have year-round staff who are not connected to the summer camping services.
I decided not to include facilities/maintenance staff, as nearly every camp that owns property employs someone doing that work, whereas camps that rent space do not. I also did not include positions where the bulk of the work is for retreat groups in the off-season, as the focus of this was on those running the summer camps. All owner/directors were counted as "directors." Finally, most camps do not discuss the size of their camper base on their websites, but predictably, the camps with more year-round staff are larger.
Have questions about year-round teams? Want to tell me who is on your team? Email me: nick@fairwindsconsult.com.
