Salaries of Employees from "non-profit charity" I was going to donate too

This is more of a system issue than bad behavior of an individual charity.

Charities can underpay a little bit, because working for a charity has its own appeal. But if you want a talented, experienced person to run your org, you have to consider what they could make if they worked for someone else. San Diego is not a cheap city, and has its fair share of CEO positions.

If you really want to stretch your dollar though, local food banks are probably a better bet.

Talent and experience isn't that rare. Nor does executive compensation correlate with performance.
- Whether it does or not is irrelevant; what matters is the perception among executives that it does.
- The pay correlates directly to how hard you are to replace.
- But Elon said CEOs are the most important people because they create the value.
I’m not living in america. In my country this really isn’t a thing. Most charities have a sort of “everyone gets the same salary” policy which is usually around the median salary in the country.
This charity was just running a cool project I wanted to donate too. I dont care what the american system is like, no one deserves 1 million a year while there are people starving.
- Why not donate to a local charity that might not receive as much, rather than a US based one?
- How does not giving that ‘cool project’ money do any good?
Yeah, it's a tough call to make. It's like those car donation things. Like 90% of your car's value goes to the company managing the sale, but that's still 10% to the charity that they wouldn't have anyway. Unless you want to deal with selling your own car, and giving the charity the money, it still does some good.
I suspect a $1M salary isn't too insane for a CEO if they bring tangible value to the company. Also, with a lack of shareholders to answer to like in a publicly traded company, their motivations probably align with the cause they're supporting. It's not like they're going to sell off a shitload of assets to bump stock price and escape with a golden parachute.
But if you want a talented, experienced person to run your org, you have to consider what they could make if they worked for someone else.
That’s such bullshit reasoning. They make more than 99.9% of people. I get that not everyone is great, but you are saying 99.9% of people are all talentless hacks that couldn’t do a decent enough job to the extent that the salary savings would be worth it?
Guess my civil engineering degree and 18 years of experience is a worthless pile of shit.
- Hypothetically, if you were looking at two civil engineering jobs, and one paid 100k/yr, and another paid 200k/yr, which would you pick?
  Would it matter much if any of the construction guys doing the actually construction of your projects made 50k/yr? Are they less talented than you for that?
  It's not so much about "talentless hacks" vs "a decent job" as trying to entice the best person you can afford.

https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/2023-SDZWA-Annual-Report.pdf

Total revenue per year is 420 million.

Concessions and cleaning staff typically make 35k-40k. Zookeepers ~50k.

These 5 employees. Amount to .8% of the yearly operating budget, while the sum of all other employees totals up to 10% of the 400 million dollar operating budget.

I’m not making any judgements, just offering the numbers.

They pay cooks less than $20/hour in a city with an average rent of $3000/month. I've got no problem passing judgement.
- They pay cooks less than $20/hour
  So their cooks get paid less than 'cooks' at McDonald's? Fast food minimum wage is $20/hour throughout California.

This is a good reminder that you can look up Form 990 for any nonprofit (they are required to submit one), which includes any staff that make over $100k.

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

Also, it looks like the “salaries” you found are total compensation, which also includes medical and retirement benefits. The CEO’s salary is around $600k, but also got a $300k+ bonus.

For a second I thought this was a hit list.

- Well, if you stab some potatoes, circumcise a cauliflower, and proceed to nunchuck a bag of flour ... Then it might just have been a grocery list and now you're not allowed in the store anymore
- Thanks, I just smashed all of my kids' Christmas gifts.

My wife works for a non-profit where the Executive Director (CEO if you will) cannot make more than 5x what the lowest paid person makes. Wish more non-profits would adopt something similar

Well we don't know if the lowest paid employee makes $254,927 at this one
- That's the Janitor. He drives Bentleys off the pier into the Pacific Ocean every second saturday.

You earn less than 20k? Save your money, volunteer your time! Much more productive and rewarding!

Disabled and bedridden, [blocked]
- https://www.hotosm.org/
  If you would like to do something cool, I suggest these guys. You can do it all from wherever you are comfortable.
  Here is the current project:
  https://www.hotosm.org/volunteer-opportunities/volunteer-mappers/
- Executive pay is to high Inn the US. But consider this: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong?subtitle=en
  Who do you want running the zoo?

Blood banks. “Your blood saves lives”. Is actually “We can sell your blood to hospitals for $200 per pint”. Check the salaries of the non-profit blood bank CEO and board. I would gladly share my blood if I’m paid $100 per pint, or if they gave insurance vouchers for a free pint of blood, to avoid insurance charging $1000-3000 to get a pint back. In fact they could just call it “blood insurance” where your premium is paid in regular blood donations.

So straight people get blood for free since they can donate, but gay people, chronically ill people and drug addicts don't, because they aren't allowed to.
- Not to mention those of us that just lived in the wrong country for a while in the 80's.
- I think they fixed the gay bit recently, 2023.
  https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/fda-policy-allowing-gay-bisexual-men-donate-blood-goes-effect-rcna98234
- Well we don’t want cancer or drugs in blood. But the current screening criteria for blood donations are kinda crazy. Travel to certain countries, tattoos. They should just test for the stuff they’re worried about directly: HIV, Hepatitis, and Malaria. Not that it matters since it’s illegal to buy/sell bodily fluids.
- Source on getting blood for free from donating? It's not that I don't believe you, I've just never heard of it.
Honestly this might sound weird but why can't you just go around selling Organs? Wouldn't that drive companies to make artificial Organs?
This also could backfire like crazy so maybe it isn't the greatest idea.
- Yes this would certainly lead to murder.

Charities and billionaires are the polar extremes of the same policy failure. In a healthy society neither should exist, and when they do they should be tolerated for a minimal time as possible.

Charities and philanthropy exist to permit governments and corporations to abdicate their social responsibilities.

When the work a charity does is properly valued by a society, it’s economy would never need to carve out a special, nonprofit status for it.

When the work a charity does is properly valued by a society, it’s economy would never need to carve out a special, nonprofit status for it.
Maybe, but in reality this almost never happens. The work of many charities is typically attacked by the state and other fascists. The current attack on non-profits is a great example. It's disappointing but not surprising to see so many libs supporting this. The liberatory goals of charity are directly opposed to the oppressive goals of the state. For example capitalism relies on the hunger that charity purports to oppose.

I’ve given up on charity. They’ve lobbied sites like Charity Navigator to not count executive compensation as a negative. I’m sick of capitalism ruining everything.

The only places I donate money to are local food banks, Sally Ann's, homeless initiatives and random people living on the streets.
Da fuck any of the big organized non-profits get any of my money.
- random people living on the streets
  That's where I'm at as well. 100% guarantee all the money is going to a person in need.

Was put to me at a young age that non-profit only means they spend any revenue they get before it gets to the bottom line to show up as a gain or loss. Always good to sort out the shady from the legit.

that's not just non profits. ever wonder how so many nominally "unprofitable" companies seem to stick around forever?

Give it to the San Diego food bank instead. It's a good charity from what I've seen, and I've volunteered there at least half a dozen times.

What the heck is a chief philanthropy officer?

They get wealthy people to donate.
- Wealthy *friends. Hence a solid position
- I always thought philanthropy was a fancy name for prostitution.

Mutual aid is where it's at.

I took a huge pay cut when I worked for a non profit. :(

I quit nonprofit because the salary is real bad. Like 25% of what I currently make.
They're in a catch-22. They can't hire quality people because they need funds but then you see things like this like, "Why are they paying this guy so much?" And continues a neverending cycle of low wages.

Charities are good business. That's why there are a lot of them.

No affiliation, and I've never donated to them, but their financials are far from the worst:

There are many charities that don't spend the majority of donations on the actual program. Like, wtf...

There are some non profits that are money funneling machines. Enter College board and CompTia.
I'd like to call out the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation here. You know the pink ribbon people. They are ridiculously corrupt. They only give 21% of what they take in.

Management and marketing bloat is extremely common for nonprofits, unfortunately. Especially large ones.

Ones that don't do that exist too, but it's a thing you have to be wary of.

It's a classic moral hazard of private non-profits. You generate income from press and marketing, so you have an incentive to invest more in those parts of your business. The Zoo Wildlife Alliance doesn't get any money from the wildlife.
But now you've got a marketing team that wants to grow, in order to generate more revenue. So they need more revenue themselves. But it's "justified" because they can claim credit for every dollar brought in. The bigger the marketing staff gets, the more sway they have within the organization as a whole. So it prioritizes growth for the sake of growth, rather than asking where the money is going.
And all along, the fundraising leadership is justifying higher and higher compensation as a percentage of groups revenue.
Eventually, you're just a millionaire pan handler, asking money so you can ask for money. That's a totally organic consequence of unregulated industry.
- Yup.
  And honestly direct regulation is hard here. Those are the two expenses that grow out of control, because it's really hard to measure how much marketing or managing you need exactly. No empirical proof of overspending means no legal case against the directors.
  Ideally, they'd have to provide something like the MER (management expense ratio) you see on investment funds. Charity kind of is like an investment on the behalf of the greater good, if you think about it.

The head of the American Red Cross makes about 750k, last I heard.

Whether or not that's justified either, I think we can all agree it's a little bit larger of an organization with more responsibility to juggle.

Some of these charities are approaching large corporations in size and complexity. Getting people with experience to run them can be hard and the people that do do it often do it as a charitable contribution.
- do do it often do it
  Had to read that one a couple times 😅

Unpopular opinion: Charities should be morally allowed to compete for top talent on a financial basis.

Unpopular opinion: “top talent” is a meaningless capitalistic word to justify crazy wealth disparities
I say this as someone who went to one of the “highest ranked” unis in the world. Most of all this prestige and “top talent” stuff is bullshit designed to keep the rich rich.
- It doesn't seem like an unpopular opinion at all
Realistic opinion: It takes zero "talent" to sit on a board and collect money.
(Ofc this zio wacko supports extreme inequality. Probably thinks poors are all palestinian.)

I suggest donating to your local wild animal rescue/rehabber. They're all volunteer based. They receive $0 public money. The public rarely sees the work they do. They're doing physically and mentally taxing work purely for the love of animals.

They typically all have a donation page, and many have Amazon Wishlists where you can send them cleaning, maintenance, or medical supplies directly if you're worried about the money going to something you might not intend.

Nothing will go to people. You won't have to question if you're really help an animal that may or may not exist in a country you'll never see. They're your neighborhood animals.

As the !superbowl@lemmy.world person here, I look specifically for a raptor rehabbers to donate to, and I share links to those rescues worldwide.

I can't find my link to the world rescue database, but for a US based one, you can look here or just Google up "wild animal rescue near me" and you should get some options.

I would also add that some Zoos are independently funded. Support them as they usually have the skill and drive to support communities and animals.
- I am a big fan of most zoos too, so I wouldn't want anyone to write them off completely. As I've gotten to learn more about the animals, when I get time to talk to staff now, I've been getting more info on the regulations and licensing they have to navigate, and transitioning from a place helping animals to one that also displays animals is a pretty big leap, and that is going to require much more overhead. While many cases won't be as extreme as a huge zoo like OP was looking at, that would seem to be what leads to larger and larger zoos starting to look more like a typical corporation on paper like that.
- Zoos are NOT in it to "support the animals". If they were they would keep people away from the animals.
  I did some in-depth research on a Zoo near me because I was looking for fraud by one of their board members because their name was found in the Panama papers. I found that they get ALL the money they need to support the animals and staff from the government, and it gets put in a nice non-profit which they happily told people on their website. But the Zoo had a second for-profit company, which was the company that made profit from all the people and children visiting.
  So no, fuck Zoos. They are only in it to make money.

Here's the thing: I don't know about this charity in particular. But in general, a big charity is just as complicated a business as a big for profit company.
The task of managing it isn't any easier. So the people who have experience in managing big businesses can get that kind of money elsewhere, too.
In our system, the charity is pretty much forced to pay competitive CEO salaries if they want experienced people at the helm.
If they paid much less, they wouldn't get anyone to do the job who's actually competent.

It would be nice if organisations were run by people who were so dedicated to the job that they'd do it for free or at least on a survival wage, but it is difficult to find someone with both the right qualifications and the willingness to do it cheaply.

The figures aren't outrageous for those positions and as a non-profit they do have a board who made the decision to pay those amounts.

It's not like a private company where the owner/CEO can just grab the money. The board members voted to hire someone and offered those amounts.

If you want to change this kind of thing, you need to attend the annual meeting in which the board is elected. I've been elected to a few board positions in non-profit organisations and let me tell you: It's really easy to get on a board. Most places have difficulties filling the positions or you can easily outcompete other candidates simply by wanting to be there. It's boring as fuck, but important stuff sometimes happens and it's a good experience to have.

So if you want to actually contribute to that non-profit, you might want to save your few dollars and instead give them some of your time to help them in the right direction. Assuming you're dedicated to the cause in the first place that is. If you have something to say, you will be heard, because quite frankly, half the board members only come for the free food.

You think a zoo CEO being paid $1.2 million per year is normal? Really????
As someone who has worked at a non profit and works at a low profit company now, the idea that because it's work we're passionate about that we should do it for pennies is so toxic, and how teachers, nurses, childcare workers, etc are abused by society. We're actively out here trying to fix the problems caused by capitalism and the top 10% who are fucking over the world, and we deserve to be fairly compensated, not do it for free because we're so passionate. I'm not saying OP's example is right either, but charity workers shouldn't need to rely on charity to survive, or be so wealthy they didn't need to get paid.
- This completely misrepresents the issue. It is not about working for free. A salary of a million bucks is just insane, regardless of context, be it for a non-profit, a private company or a presidential office. There's no point of donating money to a cause if it only ends up in the pockets of a CEO who already has way too much of it.
Those figures definitely ARE outrageous for those positions, or ANY positions.
It would be nice if organisations were run by people who were so dedicated to the job that they’d do it for free or at least on a survival wage
A fully flashed out public service sector could encourage this. If health care and housing and utilities and education were human rights rather than luxuries, you'd have more people who didn't consider a six figure salary at a for-profit venture a prerequisite for survival.
It’s not like a private company where the owner/CEO can just grab the money
When the board is stacked with friends and family and the job itself is just cronyism, they absolutely can.
So if you want to actually contribute to that non-profit, you might want to save your few dollars and instead give them some of your time to help them in the right direction.
The advanced state of finance capitalism and the deplorable state of mass transit and paid leave make financial gifts far more practical than donated labor.

While not ideal, I would like to note that the charity has a revenue of 392 M$. Spending 1-2% on salaries of top exec is not that bad if it prevents them from misusing the funds. A lot of the time, the alternative to high salaries for people in power is those people giving in to corruption since the risk/benefit encourages it. Just look at politics for an example.

That being said, wtf is chief philanthropy officer?!

Spending 1-2% on salaries
These greedy cunts are probably 1% of the workforce though. How much is actually spent on salaries?
Stop defending them
- Stop defending them
  Idk anything about them, so it is not my intention to defend anyone. I am just pointing out that having bad execs (whether incompetent, careless or outright embezzlers) is far worse than paying 1-2%. As far as I know, no one has came up with a better reusable way to get good execs than paying them a lot. I have no idea if these execs in particular are good.
Chief Philanthropy Officer probably heads their fundraising team. Aka sales
- That's exactly what they do. They also usually act as a liason between their mega donors to ensure the money is spent in the way it's ear marked for. Mega donors usually donate conditionally, basically a type of private grant.
- That makes sense, thanks for the info.
What you are describing is blackmail.
"Pay us exorbitant salaries or we'll be forced to embezzle the funds"
- It's also human nature for the kind of sociopath executive positions attract.
- I am not an exec, so no it is not. It is just statement of fact.
- Last time I checked prison was the real alternative.
- Interesting. Our local art museum pays their philanthropic director about $170k. Smaller org of course.
- Don't want to dox you or anything but are you comfortable saying the nonprofit you work for? I'm just curious.
- Who cares for your funking CFO? No way he's the guy doing "innovative shit that saves lives across the world", it's the guys below him making a fraction of his salary.

Indeed , disgusting and out of control. Start taxing their asses.

Every dollar you give feeds an animal.

Some animals are more equal than others.

Okay, so think about it like this:

Suppose your job is making wooden chairs. It's takes you the exact same skills to make a wooden chair to sell for profit, as it does to make a wooden chair to donate to a chairless children's charity, right? So why would you spend all your time and skills doing a job that's eventually going to bankrupt you? While you might do a few chairs because you feel like it's morally right, the bulk of your work is going to be selling chairs because that's how you sustain yourself.

CEOs are in the same situation. A 500-person for-profit company takes the exact same skill set to run as a 500-person non-profit. So the reality is that non-profits need to either be competitive in pay with for-profits, or they have to be attractive in ways other than compensation so they can entice CEOs to work for them.

Now, none of that is to say that the scale of CEO compensation is appropriate, because it's not. But that's the calculus a non-profit has to make.

It really depends on the environment

for me its more like whats the lowest paid worker. Nowadays you are going to have trouble under six figures in any major city and the ceo is not much over 10x that. Now I doubt the lowest paid worker makes that but it would be great if they did.

The market rates are not about trying to make everyone make a living. It is all about how hard you are to replace.
If you do the job only 0.1% of people can do you will make bank. If you do the job anyone with a pulse can do you will make almost nothing.
- Yeah and thats what I was getting at. That the pay listed is not that high for the jobs and actually quite low but we should be limiting compensation based on a ratio low to high and I would like to see that in non for profits if our society can't properly regulate. If non for profits can't find folks to run big non for profits then people should give to smaller more local charities.

Wow, that's crazy. I just checked out my local zoo and there are only 2 executives with a pay package of $200k. The rest are unpaid trustees.

It's not exactly the charities fault.

The real issue is that for profit companies can pay their CEOs this much, which means charities have to compete if they want a good CEO too.

In reality we should be cracking down on companies hoarding wealth towards to their CEOs at exorbitant rates, that way charities won't have to pay a wage like this just to function and even hire a CEO.

They don't have to do this. They're choosing to. It's not like these guys can just walk into the unemployment office and say "I'd like one CEO job please". There's more people interested in executive positions than there are positions available. Why is it only acceptable to use that knowledge to negotiate lower wages for lower ranking positions?
- Fundamentally good CEOs expect a wage based on the market.
  There's tonnes of high paying positions so, no, non profits truly will struggle to find an actually good CEO if they dont offer a competitive wage.
  It's not their fault, it's the lack of regulation on all the for-profits and the fact they can funnel so much money up to CEOs unchecked.
  If for-profits had regulatory checks that made them do that less, then non-profits wouldn't have to compete with nearly as insanely high wages.
  IE if there was a law that CEOs couldn't be paid more than 10x their lowest paid worker, this problem would be a lot less insane.
- I think they want someone with some experience. There aren't that many of those.
Who is this "we" cumquat? It really only impacts the investors or owners of the company.
Unless you are directly tied into a company it doesn't really matter.

That's why I'm very picky about donating. When I was at my very first job, pushing 1200 packages an hour at UPS for hourly wages, I donated to the United Way via payroll deduction. I was listening to the news in my car when I heard the CEO of United Way took his family on a $2M vacation. I had that payroll deduction removed on the very next shift.

Damn, my work at a non profit yields me free coffee and water. I think I'm underselling myself

It's a racket based on torturing and exploiting animals. Don't ever donate to that. What kind of ethics did you expect?

Donate to the cause of palestinian liberation. They're a primary reason that the fascists are trying to end non-profits. They actually need support and actually help people, life, the planet, etc.

How do they get a salary if they are non-profit? Does the donation money just go to them?

The org is non-profit, the people working for it very much would like their profit. Yes it's from donations.
Non-profits pay fixed salaries. Instead of having an owner who “profits” all the extra money left over.
- Fixed to THAT much is a crime! Lol.
Does your bank accept payments of $0? Or the grocery stores? Even if your organization doesn't generate profits, people still need an income to survive...
- I meant a big salary like that. If you read my other comments. This was a genuine question. OP had good point.
Because they aren't volunteers?

Do you live in San Diego? It's incredibly expensive to live there; that said, these pays are far to fucking high even for SD.

Wow, no wonder they don't make a profit 🙃

It really depends on a few things. First, where do they live? The cost of living is different depending on where you are at. Second, what is there background and education? Some high level positions pay very well because there are not that many people that can perform the role. Lastly, what percentage of the budget is going to the leadership? Most of it should be going to the cause.

Where in the world does it cost 1.27 million dollars a year to live?
- If you need to attract talent away from somewhere else. Cost of doing business,. Or in this case non profit.

Is there a site which documents all charities and flags misuse of funds and such?

How do we know donations will go where expected?

Charity navigator is generally a good source.
If they rate highly there I'll just search up the organization's controversies and make sure nothing is currently going wrong.
At the end of the day there's no guarantee regardless so just donate and feel good about it knowing you did your research.

A guy that came in as an LPO to a company I worked for used to brag about his last job. He worked for a non-profit and his whole entire job was to find ways to make money off of it. Tax loopholes, legal scams, etc. He said it was his favorite job because it was like solving a puzzle every day.

So gross.

Anyway, the top brass really liked him and followed all his plans for our company. Now it is in Mexico and the main facilities are shut down.

Donating is idiotic. End of story. If you donate to anything, you're a moron.

Joker moment

I'd like to be "chief philanthropy officer" as well.

A quick Google shows there expense ratio is 86% which I think isn't horrible.

https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/951648219

Same in the UK - and in part it's encouraged by the regulatory body, the Charity Commission to ensure competent senior staff. (Not usually as high as the example you give, but certainly most large charities pay senior grade around £100k and upwards.

You can kind of see that point, but most people would be shocked and dismayed to know how little difference their individual donation makes.

I always encourage people to check this information as you've done for your country before donating. Many charities can do a huge amount of good with small donations, but it's the big ones that can make effective change through lobbying.

But the more cynical amongst you will realise that charities exist on paper to solve problems. There is an inherent contradiction that if they do solve those problems, everyone that works for them is suddenly out of work.

To me this is par for the course. Corpos steal from you before you get it (wage theft), and "charity" manipulates you into the same, but you're a "willing" participant in the process of having your money taken.

Pretty much everyone who is classifiably "rich" has gotten there by taking a small amount from a large number of people, usually on an ongoing timeline. The formula hasn't changed. If you don't have a hundred people giving you a small amount consistently, you're probably not going to become rich.

If paying a CEO $200k more makes the charity $2 million more, it's a no-brainer. Billionaires love to give to animal-related causes, so that's easily plausible.

In reality of course, predicting the amounts of money a CEO will bring in is virtually impossible, so it becomes a nepo-baby-fest like everything else. People with rich connections are in high demand at pretty much every entity that has a need to raise money, so they cost a lot.

Then of course you have the problem that in the wider scope, this reality creates an arms-race between charities for fundraising potential that diverts from the causes themselves. The only real solution to that problem is to punish charities that pay their officers too much by not giving them money.

I earn <20k a year

Could I ask what you do for a living or what field of work you're in?