I was planning to donate the couple bucks I had left over from the year to the charity called “San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance”, I was doing a background check on CharityNavigator and they gave the charity full ratings so it seemed good.
Then I stumbled upon the salary section. What the fuck? I earn <20k a year and was planning to contribute to someone’s million dollar salary? WHAT.
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?!
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.
Thanks for the extra info.
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.
So we should just accept that and pay them off rather than putting in mechanisms to prevent that and hiring people who are motivated by something other than the payout?
It might seem like we have no choice but we do, collectively, hold the power of the purse here. And I think this post is a great example of that.
No, we shouldn’t, but that’s what is happening.
And yes, I agree.
You are not necessarily paying of the same people. Even most honest/righteous people like to be paid well. So the charity willing to pay them get those and the charities that don’t pay well risk getting the kind of people who don’t mind embezzling.
I am not an exec, so no it is not. It is just statement of fact.
What is “it” in your comment?
What I am describing is not blackmail. It is the same as saying that leaving unguarded food next to starving people encourages theft of said food. That is not blackmail. I am saying anything beyond that. I am not commenting on morality of the situation or what the right thing to do is. Just pointing out a fact.
It amazes me that somehow all that makes sense in your brain. Interesting.
Sorry, do I need to handhold you through it? Are you unable to figure out what the definition of blackmail is? “If you don’t bring an umbrella, you will get wet since it is supposed to rain.” is not blackmail. Unless you are 10, I am very concerned that you can’t comprehend this.
What’s not comprehensible here is your argument. I’d suggest you consider how you might learn to be a better communicator.
Good bye.
Last time I checked prison was the real alternative.
For the little people.
Would be nice if that worked. If you embezzle the money smartly, e.g. giving lucrative contracts to friends consultancy firm, there is pretty much no way to prove it.
That salary should be elevated, but a more reasonable value would be $250-350K. At least in my extremely expensive market. That’s the guy that asks rich people for money. He generates multiples of his salary in value. He’s connected to the very wealthy. When I contributed to such efforts, I was invited to dine with Peter Lynch (who served lamb chops at his penthouse in Boston, it was an experience. Nice guy.).
He could get a well-paying job at virtually any large nonprofit.
Edit: CFO is also extremely competitive but that much at a nonprofit is fucken wild. $600K is what we pay our CFO at my very large and consequential nonprofit (like, we do innovative shit that saves lives across the world).
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.
You try running an org without a CFO and see how it goes.
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.
Fuck no.
Haha fair enough! Love it.