Salaries of Employees from "non-profit charity" I was going to donate too
Salaries of Employees from "non-profit charity" I was going to donate too
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm one of the money guys at a nonprofit. You wouldn't believe the vast corruption I have seen. Our president recently asked: "how did it get to this point?" He knew the fucking answer.
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.
Charities are good business. That's why there are a lot of them.
Damn I'm in the wrong nonprofit lol. Building, activity and pay & benefits for 7 employees come in under $400k total budget/expenses and we have distributed millions and millions of pounds of food in the last few years.
This is why I always tell donation canvasers to shove it and make their rich ceo pay for it in full. Nothing worse then a billionaire CEO for loblaws underpaying someone to ask for handouts.
I basically refuse to assist any and all charities at this point because of exactly what you have shown in your images. It's disgusting.
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.
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.
Indeed , disgusting and out of control. Start taxing their asses.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 🙃
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.
I earn <20k a year
Could I ask what you do for a living or what field of work you're in?
A quick Google shows there expense ratio is 86% which I think isn't horrible.
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 $2 million more, it's a no-brainer. Billionaires love to give to animal-related causes, so that's easily plausible.
In reality of course, predicting the amounts of money a CEO will bring in is virtually impossible, so it becomes a nepo-baby-fest like everything else. People with rich connections are in high demand at pretty much every entity that has a need to raise money, so they cost a lot.
Then of course you have the problem that in the wider scope, this reality creates an arms-race between charities for fundraising potential that diverts from the causes themselves. The only real solution to that problem is to punish charities that pay their officers too much by not giving them money.
I'd like to be "chief philanthropy officer" as well.
While not ideal, I would like to note that the charity has a revenue of 392 M$. 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?!
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.
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.
