Poll: Should a CEO of a non-profit organization be drawing a salary of aprox. $500,000 per year?

[Tx4obama]

Poll options: Yes or No.


What is the salary of the Susan G Komen CEO?

Answer:

According to Charity Navigator, Hala G. Moddelmog, the CEO of Susan G Komen, makes $531,924 plus bonus. This is a private charity, so there is very little information leaked to the public. That said, there are several jobs listed on many boards for $100,000 to $200,000+. Guess there is good money painting everything pink!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_salary_of_the_Susan_G_Komen_CEO

-----

The Komen CEO salary in 2010 was $459,406 a year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure


So, since we do not yet have a dedicated POLL function here at DU3, please put your poll answer in the comments below.


p.s. I find it highly offense that any CEO or board member would take such a large compensation from an organization that exists due to donations that the general public expects the money to be used for research and for helping others in need.

[Scuba]

1. No.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Unless of course

it was Me then I would think it was fair.... to me...
the Ichingcarpenter... making a half a million dollars a year because of the selfless victims of breast cancer.

I could give away ninety percent of my salary and still earn twice the amount that I do now.

....... I don't think I need a scarcest dohicky.

[Justice wanted]

2. That's outragous! I understand and know that CEO of non-profits need to make a salary because

they are running a Non-profit. BUT NO non-profit CEO should make that much. The idea of a non-profit is to help others not themselves.

[JSnuffy]

5. Ha...

You're funny...

[WCGreen]

57. Were we ever so naive as to believe that people would work for a charity not to get into the

top 1% but just to do good things...

There is no justification for that kind of salary when more than likely, thousands of people volunteer to do the day to day stuff. Plus they pay any staff a pittance, playing off the "working for a cause" guilt trip...

[geckosfeet]

3. Her compensation is almost as much as the aid package to Planned Parenthhod.

OK, $200k less than the $700k Planned Parenthood was getting.

Holding my nose while I ad this link to Time.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2106095,00.html

Besides $400,000 in smaller donations from 6,000 people, Planned Parenthood is receiving $250,000 from a family foundation in Dallas and a $250,000 pledge announced Thursday by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to match future donations.

In Washington, 26 U.S. senators — all Democrats except for independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont — signed a letter calling on Komen to reconsider its decision.

According to Planned Parenthood, its health centers performed more than 4 million breast exams over the past five years, including nearly 170,000 as a result of Komen grants.

Komen, meanwhile, has been deluged with negative emails and Facebook postings, accusing it of knuckling under to pressure from anti-abortion groups, since The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the charity was halting grants that Planned Parenthood affiliates used for breast exams and related services. The grants totaled $680,000 last year.

But grossly obscene and hypocritical nonetheless.

[eShirl]

6. damn

[Scuba]

13. A most noteworthy tidbit. Thanks.

[Ecumenist]

4. Hell no they shouldn't be getting that kind of money. It's disgusting and

disgraceful. WTF are they doing for that? are they actually doing the scientific research for the cure? Probably more likely having 2 martini lunches each day and attending 4 quarterly shareholder meetings.

[hobbit709]

7. Not only NO but HELL NO!

[City Lights]

8. No!

to Susan G. Komen!

[LiberalArkie]

9. That is how most big non-profits work... They have to put their money somewhere

[Robb]

10. Puts her in the top 2% of nonprofit CEOs.

http://www.rosettathurman.com/2011/09/42-important-findings-about-nonprofit-executive-directors/

[RockaFowler]

23. Thanks for this graph

Look I think Nancy started this group as a good idea to honor her sister. But as I said before she used this organization to further her career. She lost sight of what the true goal was - to help women suffering from this disease. Now it's all about who can out-pink the next company. Now the organization is about how Nancy can look better. $500K is wrong in so many ways

[RegieRocker]

12. Evert penny they earn takes away from someone who really needs it

And pastors are stealing gods money too. Both should work for free. Either a retired person or hold down another job. This issue has been a thorn to me.

[Sanity Claws]

14. People can't work for free

One needs to be paid for one's services, whether one is working for a nonprofit or a for-profit entity. The grocery store does not give out free food and landlords do not rent their property for free.
However, the amount of compensation should be reasonable. What that woman earns is nothing short of stealing from donors.

[RegieRocker]

25. Obviously you have never donated your time at a soup kitchen, food pantry etc.

Good people donate their time often for no pay. If you had read they too should have a job or be retired. You get that part or not?

[Sanity Claws]

53. Excuse me! You have jumped to a conclusion without any foundation.

I donate my time to a lot of organizations; on a regular basis I work for a dance group, an organ donor organization, and a legal group for low-income and underrepresented individuals. I also do sporadic volunteering for other groups.
But my time is donated on an occasional basis, a couple of hours a week. An organization of the size of the Komen Foundation, museums, schools, and the like cannot be run on a purely volunteer basis. There is a need for ongoing management.
When a person is engaged in full time employment, as is needed to run a large organization, compensation is required, IMHO.

[RegieRocker]

64. Like this?

As you open your pockets for yet another natural disaster, keep these facts in mind:

Marsha J. Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross... salary for year ending 06/30/03 was $651,957 plus expenses.

Brian Gallagher, President of the United Way receives a $375,000 base salary, plus numerous expense benefits.

The Salvation Army's Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of only $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_charities_salaries.htm

Thousands of retired people donate their time for free. I guess they are just too damn good for that huh?

They need to do it for free to mirror those giving their money freely IMHO

[handmade34]

15. to keep perspective

Cecile Richards makes upwards of $400,000.

[TreasonousBastard]

18. Now you did it...

confusing people with facts when their minds are made up.

Seems a lot of people think someone running a $400 million operation should work for what our local cops make.

[itsrobert]

24. To put in perspective President Obama makes $400,000 annually

Now I did it. Seems like some people think that someone running a $400,000,000 non-profit should make more than someone running a multi-trillion dollar non-profit.

[uponit7771]

29. Come on, 1% shills don't like the whole reality thing...you have to ease it up on them

[BlueCheese]

45. To be fair...

He gets a nice house and some nice travel benefits.

[RegieRocker]

66. Their is only 168 hrs in a week and they probably only

work the same amount of hours as the cop or how about a teacher. Maybe the teacher would make a better CEO anyway.

[ProSense]

27. She

also lives in New York. If she moved to Dallas, she could live the same lifestyle for less than $200,000

A salary of $500,000 in Texas is extremely excessive.

[handmade34]

34. don't disagree

I simply think when we look at an issue and want to make an argument, facts are crucial... many want to lambast on whim. I strongly believe that we need to look at all CEO pay!

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/morning_roundup/2011/11/200-nonprofit-execs-top-100k-salary.html

http://www.tgci.com/magazine/Nonprofit%20Pay.pdf

[City Lights]

31. According to Charity Navigator, she makes $340,498.00.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4338

[handmade34]

37. thanks

[itsrobert]

47. Forbes has it over a half million dollars

-Top pay, which includes benefits, one-time payments and deferred compensation, is based on latest available information.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/14/charity-10_Susan-G-Komen-for-the-Cure_CH0155.html

Top Person: Nancy G. Brinker
Top Pay:4 $531,924

[City Lights]

48. I was talking about Cecile Richards.

[BrendaBrick]

52. Thanks for posting the charity navigator link

That's a great site! (I was going to post it myself.) On the other end of the spectrum is this:

Source: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten.detail&listid=92

10 Highly-Rated Charities with Low Paid CEOs

The leaders of these 10 organizations run highly-rated charities, yet they earn far less than the average compensation of $150,000 reported by the over 5,000 charities rated by Charity Navigator. The low salaries help these charities, which have earned at least two consecutive 4-star ratings, devote more than 80% of their budgets to their programs and services. That means that less than 20% of your dollars are going to such costs as fundraising and administration, including the salary of the CEO. The list is ranked by the CEO's compensation.

Rank Charity CEO Salary
1 WorldTeach $41,846
2 Lives Under Construction Boys Ranch $43,960
3 Crossroads Urban Center $56,057
4 The Lambi Fund of Haiti $56,120
5 Chattanooga Area Food Bank $56,620
6 Missoula Food Bank $59,192
7 Food Bank of West Central Texas $61,057
8 WildEarth Guardians $62,000
9 Shared Harvest Foodbank $64,621
10 Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Portland, Oregon $66,001

Other Top Ten Lists: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten

[City Lights]

54. Thanks for posting that list!

I was checking the CEO salary for my favorite charities earlier and was amazed at how much lower they were than Brinker, but they were nowhere near those on the list you posted. Four of those are food banks.

[BrendaBrick]

61. I noticed that too!

About the food banks. I sure hope to heck this one particular situation doesn't turn a lot of folks off to giving to charities in general...because there are many OTHER CHARITIES out there doing the right thing...and feeding the poor (or - what is the now the *PC* term these days... the *food unstable*) out there that really need help and donations are not gobbled up (pardon the pun) by massively inflated executive management's salary!

[Generic Other]

16. No

They are thieves disguised as charity. I think Komen will regret the fact they forced us to put them under more scrutiny. Money goes to PP from now on. Never again does Komen get a cent from me.

[Aerows]

63. Yep, dearly regret it

Oh well, the greedy keep taking until they get put under the microscope and then they scream "witch hunt". Never mind that you've been stealing from the public and got so evil that people noticed for a change. Not another cent, not another mile.

[izquierdista]

17. That's not a "salary"

If salaries are determined by free market competition, with qualifications and experience bidding up the price, there are no jobs worth more than about $200,000 a year. That's what somebody with a PhD or MD or JD with a few years experience gets. Anything in excess of $200,000 is based on who you know, not what you know.

[TreasonousBastard]

22. None? Union dockworkers at Newark make more than that with overtime.

[izquierdista]

33. With overtime.

And even with overtime, not much more. I don't think any of them are making Justin Bieber type money. And people like Justin who make a LOT more money are not drawing a salary, they are being paid as much as their agents can negotiate for giving a performance.

[Aerows]

60. At least they are actually working

This dud isn't turning her hands.

[RegieRocker]

67. Exactly!!!

[TreasonousBastard]

19. How much should they make?

[ProSense]

20. Here's another

thing to consider. Isn't Komen based in Texas?

A salary of $500K plus can't even justified by claiming the cost of living in Texas is high. If this was a salary in NYC, they'd try to do just that. Still, the equivalent is likely more than $1 million in NYC.

[DrDan]

21. this precedent was set by William Aramony of the United Way in the 90's

"In 1990, there were UWA office rumors about Aramony's liaisons with a teenage girlfriend on vacations in Paris, London and Cairo. An anonymous note on UWA letterhead was sent in late 1990 to UWA's chairman, Edward A. Brennan, who is the chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Company. The letter alleged that the charity was being looted by its president, who was romancing a young woman.

When Aramony was questioned about the allegations, he denied any wrongdoing. His divorce became final in 1991.[5] Late that year, a source at the national office revealed that Aramony flew first class, sometimes on the Concorde, used chauffeur-driven town cars and alleged that he had lavished expensive gifts on friends.[10] After receiving multiple requests for information from the media, the United Way of America's board of governors hired outside investigators in December, 1991. The auditors were instructed to review the books and examine accounting procedures within the agency. According to The Washington Post, their investigation "found sloppy record-keeping, inattention to detail, and accounting problems," but no direct "evidence that Aramony had enriched himself". In fact, all of Aramony's travel expenses were supposed to be reviewed before approval by the United Way's board of directors, whose chairman was Robert E. Allen, then the CEO of AT&T. The auditor's biggest criticism was that documentation was lacking to distinguish business expenditures from personal charges. The outrage from local United Way organizations across the country was overwhelming. Scores of offices disaffiliated themselves and/or discontinued their 1% "contribution" of dues to the national office.[10][14]

During a teleconference on February 27, 1992, Aramony announced his retirement with full pension benefits as soon as a successor was chosen. Until then, he would continue to receive his $390,000 salary and $73,000 in other compensation. When Jay R. Smith, publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and an active volunteer at United Way of Atlanta asked Aramony if he felt that they were not owed an apology, Aramony said:

Well, Jay, you absolutely are. I do apologize for any problems that my lack of sensitivity to perceptions has caused this movement. I do it happily and gladly to you and everyone else. I would never do anything at all that hurt local United Ways, the mission or the people we serve.

The following day, after an avalanche of calls from local chapters demanding his ouster, Senior vice president Alan S. Cooper was named acting president.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Aramony

****************************************************************


salary of $390K plus $73K in other compensation - and this was 20 years ago

I was working for AT&T at the time - and we were EXPECTED to give our "fair share" via payroll deduction because of Bob Allen's position with the Board of Directors. That quickly changed after this scandal.

[Safetykitten]

26. No, and they will regret having the light shined on them from the attention.

[Footay]

28. CEO my ass

Nancy Brinker isn't the CEO. She calls herself the CEO, but she doesn't have any responsibilities - she's just the figurehead. Heck, she doesn't even live in Texas. They play her her 450k+ to do nothing but Botox, plus pay a real CEO a similar amount to actually work.

How do I know this? I spent many years as a volunteer, affiliate board member, race chair and even did some volunteer lobbying in DC for them....never again.

[AmandaRuth]

30. no no no

sorry, but the fact of the matter is, ALL salaries for the middle and lower wage type jobs have been going down, all of them, and at some point the ridiculous salaries of executives, be it profit or none, (and I am sorry to say, that includes administrators for educational institutions) have to come down too.

It is interesting that this gets the dander up of some people. It is ok to reduce the standard of living for some Americans, and certainly the younger generation, but when it comes after YOU, it's always a different story.

[aquart]

32. NO.

[yardwork]

35. Private organizations shouldn't be the only safety net. We need to increase funding to NIH.

The Republicans have been defunding the National Institutes of Health and pushing for privatization of research. This is the wrong direction. We need more public funding and less reliance on private charities that are accountable only to their private boards.

[handmade34]

38. +1000

(I would think that even if I didn't work indirectly with NIH)

[stevenleser]

36. Yes they should, HOWEVER, all workers wages should be adjusted upwards to what they should be

Multiply all workers wages of manager level and below by a factor of 2.5 nationally and they are making what they should be making, and then a CEO salary of $500K is in line.

[laundry_queen]

68. Conversely

I don't think a CEO should make any more than 5 times what the lowest paid worker is making (I haven't come up with a 'fair' amount in my mind - maybe it's 2.5 times, I dunno). Seriously, do people think CEOs work all that much harder than the secretary/receptionist? Um, no. Different work, not harder work. Work that might require higher education, yes, hence the difference but other than that, $500,000 is totally over the top unless their lowest paid worker is making no less than $100,000/year, which I highly doubt they are.

BUT - as we've been discussing in our corporate finance course - CEOs are no longer people who have started the business or who have worked their way up within a company. They are the new sports stars, the new free agents. They get recruited and offered high pay to hopefully increase profits for the company that hires them. As such, salaries have gone up and up and up....much like sports salaries. Non-profit simply cannot compete with larger for profit companies, but they probably have a market of their own going on where they try to recruit sucessful CEOs based on salary. Komen may just be trying to keep up for the day they have to find a new CEO. It's not morally right, IMO, but it's predictable.

[Douglas Carpenter]

39. No, but I can understand how it might happen

Many nonprofit organizations if left to their own dedicated staff - would have a lot of trouble generating the funds necessary to keep their organization running - much less expanding. For example I work for a hospital which caters primarily to an indigenous population who live on incomes well below what the U.S. government considers poverty. The hospital is broke and in serious trouble. If it were possible to find a CEO who was essentially a fund raising expert who could reverse the situation and generate the kind of income that would put the hospital on solid financial ground and even expand services, - how much would that be worth?

Fund raising, and grant writing have become highly marketable skills. Frequently a CEO is going be chosen on the basis of their ability to attact funds. The person who has the connections and the technical knowledge about raising money - especially lots and lots of money is going to be worth a lot to any nonprofit organization. If paying a CEO $500,000 a year means having someone who can turn a financially strapped organization into an expanding financially solid organization - might it not seem worth it?

Let me say, I am not morally justifying this. I am only pointing out that keeping nonprofit organizations well funded in an era of austerity - is a monumentus task and the technocrat who knows how to do this can pretty much write their own ticket. That is what things have come to.

[Nikia]

42. While I agree that she is getting payed excessively, I think someone making $50,000

has a hard time playing the part. The part involves schmoozing with rich people in order to get big donations. That often involves appearing to be a rich person.

[truebrit71]

40. Absolutely not....

...that is OUTRAGEOUS!

[mysuzuki2]

41. a related question.

What percentage of the funds Komen collects go to direct services as opposed to administrative costs such as salaries?

[arthritisR_US]

43. No!. n/t

[flexnor]

44. i have a releative that gives very generously, but has a policy

that if the ceo makes over 1/2 mil, "let the ceo pay my donation, rather than my donation pay the ceo"

[Broderick]

46. That is A LOT of donation money needed

just to pay that salary. 50000 ten dollar donations.

[stlsaxman]

49. No- especially as CEO for a non-profit named after (exploiting the name of) her dead sister. nt

[hunter]

50. In a perfect world non-profit agencies such as this would be unnecessary.

Everyone would have access to excellent health care, and universities and other publicly funded institutions would be doing abundant research to find the causes and a cure for breast cancer.

Maybe unpaid volunteers could bring pink Susan G Komen care-baskets to the hospitals to cheer up breast cancer patients, but I'll bet grandmas bringing marijuana brownies would be more popular.

Many charitable organizations reflect our society's most dismal failures and corruptions. Some simply become corrupt.

[Vehl]

51. No

If She cannot work for less, maybe she ought to vacate her seat for someone who genuinely cares more about organization's goals than her paycheck.

[dembotoz]

55. yes and no

half a mill is a ton of money no doubt about it.

but it is also a big organization.

i worked at a couple of private non profits a number of years back.

there was a gm plant in town.
the ceo of this organization made less than the average worker at the plant.

this ceo was repsonsible for the budget and operation of a number of programs with staff total way over a hundred people.

and he was paid less than a neighbor who just screwed on bumpers.
my point is not that the gm work was paid too much
but that the ceo of the non profit was paid too little.

just because you work in this field does not mean you are supposed to take a vow of poverty.

the question should be would a person in private industry with a similar job make a similar sum of money???

[Rex]

56. Of course not, that is horrible.

NT

[Aerows]

58. Simple answer, No n/t

[ileus]

59. Our nonprofit hospital CEO makes over 400k...

[Dorian Gray]

62. I run a non profit

and my salary is $48,000 per year.

yeah, not quite the same.


That is very high. It would make me question my donations to them (if I made donations to them).

[ellisonz]

65. No.

[bhikkhu]

69. No.

I know why they do it, and a good salary would be justified, but 500k is just excessive.