moneysense.ca, 15/09/11
Does it matter what the CEO of a charity is paid?
How much does the CEO at your favourite charity make? This year, for the first time, we included that information in our table. As you scan through the list, you’ll notice that many executives in the charitable sector make quite a lot. Salaries in the $250,000 to $300,000 a year range are common. The average top paycheque is $210,000.
We debated including this information because we know that some donors will find the salaries too high. When we showed the amounts to Carl Harvey, a retired accountant in Peterborough, Ont., who gives to more than 20 charities a year, he found the sums appalling. “Some guy in a corner office with a suit that I can’t afford is making hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says. “The only defence they have is ‘Well, we need to pay to get quality people.’ Come on, people would work for a lot less than that.”
Still, keep in mind that many of the charities on our list are large, complex organizations. For example, World Vision, one of the largest charities on our list, had $374 million in revenue in 2009. Many are carrying out complicated missions such as delivering programs in developing countries or supporting sophisticated medical research. Paying an experienced CEO a six-figure salary to make such an organization as effective as possible can be a good investment.
Don McCreesh, chair of Imagine Canada, an organization that supports the non-profit sector in Canada, argues that staff at charities shouldn’t be treated like volunteers. “In the charitable sector, you get what you pay for, just like in the corporate sector,” he says. “If you want to have efficient, effective organizations, you need to have top people.”
While we didn’t use the salaries as a factor in our ratings, we did feel that it was relevant information to provide to donors. By publishing all the salaries together, along with other measures showing how well the charity is meeting various standards, we believe we’ve provided some context. It’s up to you to decide whether a given charity’s top salary is out of whack with other charities in its sector. Either way, even McCreesh believes that salary information should be public. “In the charitable sector, we need to be straight up about what the salaries are and why. We need to have a discussion about what the salaries should be,” he says.
We asked all 100 charities to disclose what their CEOs made in 2009. Only 18 charities did so (each received one bonus point in the Governance and Transparency category). For those that didn’t, we used amounts from tax filings or from the Ontario government public sector salary disclosure list. The amounts given as a range are from the Canada Revenue Agency. Those amounts represent the salary of the highest-paid individual at the charity, who is not necessarily the CEO.
moneysense.ca, 15/09/11
Well, I work for a charity as a Program Implementation Specialist with an incredibly motivated and competent CEO who doesn't get six figures, which I know because transparency and honesty are the keys to a charity's success. And folks commenting on overpaying entry level staff – don't fool yourselves and make erroneous statements without reference – there is definitely a downward trend in entry level salaries in the sector, which is correlated to the lack of available jobs and a glut of available workers. Government workers are the folks who are sucking in huge salaries plus benefits off tax dollars, and many people in government, like many of people in the charitable sector, are incredibly incompetent. I receive less than per capita GDP in salary and basic medical insurance for drugs, glasses, dental, but 0 long term pension provisos and wage increases per annum that are lower than inflation, which is not exactly high, even in these uncertain economic times. Gosh I must be crazy, right? Or maybe I really do care.
There are plenty of unemployed NGO-trained post grads out there who are wage takers, not wage specifiers, and you don't go into this line of work to get rich – while there are always a few exceptions, do not delude yourself into thinking it is a gravy train for those of us doing the actual work on the ground – it is extremely high pressure, frequently extremely high risk, usually involves overburdened work schedules, and lots of turnover and depression in general. It is a business that thrives off misery, but a business under constant scrutiny to cut admin costs to bare minimums. This can hurt programming if an organization does not hire sufficient staff – so make sure the charity you invest in isn't slamming their employees with impossible workloads, because though everything appears rosy, your money could be falling into a black hole. It costs money to manage money – and Kathy and Joanne make very relevant points in that regard. I would NEVER give to a charity comprised completely of volunteers as suggested above – nothing would get done, because there is no incentive to meet deliverables. Sometimes, contrary to this article's statement, you DON'T get what you pay for in charities.
The exec is a different story. I agree with the general sentiment that six figure salaries are shameful for the charitable sector and really only serve to deter giving. The banking bonuses received on Wall Street draw a lot of fire, but that money is peanuts in the banking sector, much like 250K is a drop in the bucket for WV – the public is wrong, the public is misinformed, but the public is powerful. Like Joanne notes – it is about how much money goes to programs.
There's enough belief and altruism in the folks that work in this sector, however naive it may be, that you don't need corporate remuneration pay scales, though people shouldn't be expected to work like slaves because they work for a charity – it is a business, you need to be educated, often multilingual, and gifted communicators. That said, with revenue at 347 mil worldwide, I understand the CEO of Worldvision International getting the 250K, but the CEO of Worldvision Canada pulling that in? Consider they have CEOs in something like 25 separate countries, most of which are wealthy donor countries, and it adds up big time.
If you want to give and truly make it 0 waste, you need to take the initiative like our first poster Shirley, and do it yourself, because waste is relative, and if you read annual reports, you never hear about all of the terrible unsuccessful projects – you are constantly being fed positive reporting, some true, some complete hogwash. Throwing money at a problem far away is a calculated risk if you do not do your research before giving: if charity actually worked and we pooled donations to date from 1967 into one pot, one implementer, we could have rid the world of malaria, smallpox, and polio (yep, they're all still around!), ended world hunger, reduced maternal mortality to near 0 worldwide, and have everybody literate. Instead we're all still in the hole – it is not an efficient sector, it has never been efficient.
The real problem is the whole system of competitive charities – there is so much replication and duplication of projects, a tangible aura of mistrust between charities and an unwillingness to share truthful information with each other or the public, and nearly no donor coordination from the ground up (there are top down UN coordinators for relief like OCHA, which is why relief, though a bandaid, does work). If these charities were actually making statistically significant improvements in health, education, and women's lib in other countries, they should be paid – they should be paid big time.
But they aren't, so it is appropriate to scrutinize, but I urge you to be informed. Do it for a tax receipt, but don't get up in arms when you see waste – it's been like that since inception, and some of us dedicate our lives, leisure time, and the opportunity cost of higher pay and more financial security for our families to try and fix it from the inside. Hopeless cause? Don't give. It's your prerogative.
PS – Kathy – doctors and nurses work for the people who actually pay their wages. There's a difference. The people who pay that money get something back. And the nurses especially earn far, far less than a lot of charity workers, and work far harder. Your comment makes no sense. People don't donate their hard earned money in order to keep their countrymen in jobs, but to help those the charity advertises as being in great need. And yes – a lot of people who work for charity DO do it for nothing. In fact, they often contribute their own money to it.
People who defend these ridiculously large salaries always miss the point – the money was donated out of goodwill, to help the poor. It shouldn't be abused in the way it's being. Again – it is indefensible, so any attempted defence always looks completely illogical.
'The best people for the job' – funny how the 'best people' run the system into the ground! And as for pressure – nurses, for example, are under FAR greater pressure for FAR less money. So are many, many others. Nobody decent would take a six-figure salary from money that's meant to go to those who are, literally, starving. Or struggling just to stay alive. Or in desperate need of medical care.
It DOES matter what the CEO earns, because his salary comes from the money GIVEN to the charity by people who are usually on low incomes, under the impression their money is going to help the poor.
It's a shameless exploitation, and those who are going to suffer most in the end are, of course, those who need it most. These salaries are literally indefensible. Anyone who tries doesn't understand what charity really is. (hint: it's not meant for the rich.)
What bothers me the most is that this article is hiding the real amount these people are being paid. We use the word salary and these people are too smart to let us know how much they really collect. Let us use the words PERKS AND BENEFITS and see how much they make on these two items alone – MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars in perks and benefits, like the roll royce or driver driven caddy, trips, expensive hotel rooms and food, the best cell phones and all the long distance charges, expensive clothes or clothing allowances, special schools for their children, computers, software, and it goes on and on and on, etc. It all adds up and no one is looking at the costs. Where is all the money coming from for all their perks and benefits. These are the two main million dollar expenses.