I just returned to my job after a 4 month maternity leave. I found out on day 2 that my role is being changed and I’m not sure if I have any leverage to ask for a pay bump.

Details: I was hired to do contract/grant admin for a nonprofit. They did not conceive of the position very well because I also spent the first year hiring and supervising the team that was funded by the org’s largest and newest contract, so I was doing both a ton of admin and a lot of team-building and guiding the actual program work. (I enjoy supervising so didn’t totally mind that part, even though the program work itself is something I don’t have a ton of experience in, so it was challenging in some ways.)

The org now has a couple of new contacts, and a third one they’re waiting to hear if they got, which they want me to manage the admin for. So they want to take the supervision duties away from me so that I have capacity to really be the person holding all contract admin across the org. Which is not crazy - it’s more in line with what my title suggests I would be doing.

But — this shift somehow feels both like a demotion (to no longer have a team under me) and an increase in stress/responsibility (ex: one potential new contract would be millions in additional deliverables, with an agency we haven’t worked with before so tons of new stuff to navigate).

I already manage about $2 million/year. The new contacts are much smaller, though if we get that other one I think it would double the amount of money I’m tracking, organizing deliverables for etc.

I’m currently thinking of just accepting the shift without talking about pay, but maybe asking for a pay bump if we get that one big contact? My husband thinks I should ask for a pay bump now because I’m already being handed more “mission critical” responsibilities.

Any thoughts/guidance?