A recent conversation with a client introduced to me the possible benefits to be had by a standing board compensation committee. Now I recognize that for many nonprofits executive and key employee compensation is a pretty simple exercise. At very miinimum it doesn't require much energy to benchmark i.e. find out what the competitive pay is by peer organizations (this is pretty much the standard used by the IRS to test "outrageous" compensation).
But as my client indicated, a compensation committee can be way more helpful to the board. The committee can stay on top of other regulatory matters, frame the evaluation/compensation related questions, review benefits and incentive plans (again for key employees). Clearly for a really large nonprofit, a standing compensation committee could prove very useful. For the majority of the remaining nonprofits -- maybe the compensation committee looks more like a workgroup.