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.
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.
How do they get a salary if they are non-profit? Does the donation money just go to them?
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.
It’s a percentage (less than 7% of donations for all salaries). They are a very large non-profit…
That’s what I was thinking.
I know america has this elitist managment culture of that values people who “earn their worth” and are “entrepreneurial” or whatever, but that doesn’t ever justify a million dollar salary to me.
It doesn’t seem like charity if some of your donation goes to the CEO. I understand they gotta make a living but to still call it a charity and run by millionaires that got rich BECAUSE of that charity is ridiculous.
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?
The org is non-profit, the people working for it very much would like their profit. Yes it’s from donations.
You earn less than 20k? Save your money, volunteer your time! Much more productive and rewarding!
Disabled and bedridden, can’t volunteer. All I got is the 10-30 USD left over at the end of year from my disability insurance payments and I want to do good in the world.
Saving that little won’t get me anywhere. I’m already poor and in a shitty living situation and that money can’t really help me cuz its too small, so I wanna donate it to something where it can make a difference.
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?
I want the Steve Irwins of the world that would only pursue the money in the benefit of the animals, not of their own pockets to run the zoo. Most productive and valuable people are not the richest but those truelly passionate that would even do it for free if it would’t ruin their lifes.
No doubt that Steve Irwin was a good person, but I’d like to say that his personal net worth was $10 million at the time of his unfortunate death. Thinking of this though, that money is probably what allowed his children to study and pursue lives of work for the good of the world. At the end of the day what we can say about Steve is that he died how he lived, with an animal in his heart.
I want someone who would choose to spend a million/year on the animals instead of on themselves.
That video is garbage, you REALLY think the “best and brightest” are the ones making millions? It’s the well connected. The people who make and break lives like chips on a poker table over a game of golf. The people who hang out on Epstein’s Island. They’re the only ones making millions per year.
The best and brightest are slaving away in universities and companies making meager salaries. The ones who have to fight for every cent that goes towards their innovation and research, who have to convince shareholders that every dollar they invest will give them a thousand back.
Let those people run the zoo, they’ll do it for 120k. That’s millions more that can be spent on the animals by people who actually have the skills to help.
Update Oh my god. I just watched more of the video and it’s baffling how bad it is. First he says that charities have to fill the gaps the market can’t fill because it’s not profitable. But his 5th pillar is that they should be allowed to pay profit to share holders to attract “capital”. But if they could turn a natural profit they wouldn’t need to be a charity. That means that profit necessarily has to come from DONORS. He’s literally advocating for a charity that takes donations and pays them to SHAREHOLDERS instead of the needy… Holy shit he’s in a room full of “smart” people and getting praised for this idea. I’m only half way through and I’m getting nauseous watching this.
Final update. His overall idea that overhead isn’t a good measure of charity success is a decent one. But NONE of the solutions he proposes are decent. What about compensation for charity workers? All he talks about is MBA salaries. And giving donations to shareholders is the most disgusting idea I’ve heard all year. That’s completely irredeemable.
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/
Already chose a charity. But cheers. This year I’m aiding aussie wildlife :)
This is ongoing work that is also free training, they need labour more than money. :) But, hell yea. They’re a great org too.
I’m donating to a small aussie charity who is mapping endangered fauna populations and tracking responses to land use.
(not the san diego zoo ahah)
You are a truly fantastic person to give your last bit of money away. Thank you for making the world a better place with your life.
Thank you, appreciate it.
＼(^_^)／
Is there a site which documents all charities and flags misuse of funds and such?
How do we know donations will go where expected?
givewell.org does kind of the opposite. It ranks charities by their ‘efficiency’ and offers multiple funds for bundled donation according to their constantly updated ranking.
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.
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
Try interacting with offshore contractors who were hired to cut costs.
The board are fiduciaries. They have to do the math to prove hiring a more expensive CEO is ultimately better than not.
Partly agree there. Top talent in this context doesnt have to mean you are an expert at something. It usually just means you are worth a lot of money because having you generates even more money.
Imagine making 50k and generating 100Mio a year in protif for your company (doesnt matter how, maybe you just know the right people, Biden is your cousin or something). Wouldnt you feel exploited? Some other company might offer you 500k, bevause they know its still more than worth it.
Cool, so americans will do anything for money. Even in charities. Is that what you want to hang your hat on? Its awful behavior and the OP is right to highlight the hypocrisy of a charity CEO making over 10 times the cost of living.
A person leading a charity shouldnt have such an ego that they think they deserve so much more than anyone else. How could they possibly understand the concept of charity?
My point wasnt that it is morally right, which it isnt. But OP made it sound like some evil masterminds are pulling the strings so rich people can stay in power, when it is simply people doing whats best for themselves. People are being judgemental but I think most wouldnt sacrifice 90% of their paycheck ‘because its the right thing to do’. Most people already earn 10 or 100 times more than people in Africa for example and are still buying from Amazon or temu contributing to exploitation. When people have the chance to make/save lots of money, they usually take it.
Its not simply people doing what’s best for the selves, its greedy parents who have raised greedy children who grow up thinking their job title and bank account number represent who they are. They could choose any other values to pursue in life but actively choose greed each day.
The catalyst to change oneself comes from within, so I hold people responsible who refuse to learn or change.
So why don’t you go work for a charity for 25k american a year? I’m sure you can do a much better job than overpaid C staff and pass all the rest of the money on to the actual cause, right? After all, you went to one of the best unis in the WHOLE world.
Plenty of non-american charities dont over pay people. You would expect people who work in charity to not be greedy. Greed is when you take more than you should because you think you deserve it.
If an exec can work two places and one pays an exorbitant amount but the other is a good cause, it would be altruistic to go to the good cause. If in the same situation the two places pay the same, I’m not sure it’s greed if you don’t give some back. The problem is that c suite folks in general are chronically overpaid. So the argument is that people who are very competent but don’t care about a cause should… take less money on principle I guess?
I mean sure I agree it seems ridiculous for charities to pay 8 figure salaries, but from a micro economics standpoint it doesn’t really make sense to walk away from an 8 figure salary to work for a charity either. Maybe it makes sense if you are already retired or it is your life passion, but that pool of people may be pretty small and maybe not hugely competitive.
Competent people who don’t care about the cause shouldnt take the job at all. People earning 8 figures shouldnt expect to make the same at a charity. Greed and altruism are values or qualities a person can possess and I dont think they can exist in the same person.
The United Health CEO thought he was altruistic, his family does as well. Its pretty clear the vast majority of people see greed there, not altruism.
Greedy people simply shouldnt be in charge of helping people.
I don’t think anyone is deluded enough to think for-profit insurance does anything altruistic. There is comparison at all between UHC and a charity.
In a purely ideological way I see and understand what you’re saying. In practice what I read from your message is “Charities should pay less and take who they can get”. Maybe there’s a competent altruist, and then maybe charities and nonprofits that don’t get competent staff at a “charity appropriate salary point” can just… dissolve or something? And they should do that whether they have the money to pay more or not, because charities paying more money is just flat distasteful.
Essentially you have it right, although I wouldnt say charities should dissolve as a rule. If there aren’t enough people to do the work with the right goal in mind though I dont think the answer is to pay more and get capitalists in the door.
I have a strong aversion to greed minded people in general though so I’m very biased here.
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.)
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.
It really depends on the environment
If the only reason a ceo wants to work for a charity is the huge paycheck, they have the wrong set of values to run a charity.
Being a CEO of a charity is not about prestige. This is why a lot of american charities come across as grifts in my opinion.
You should ask why a person would accept that much money to do that kind of job, they could ask for an appropriate amount but instead take what they can get.
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.
Vast majority of charities are just gritters getting paid off your feels lol
always has been, deny these parasites profits.
That’s the whole point of Charity Navigator though, so you can find the few that are worth giving to.
Charities are good business. That’s why there are a lot of them.
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.
You are assuming the highest paid ceos are the best choice for a charity as well. Running something with a goal of making as much money as possible is not the same as running something with a goal of helping with something as much as possible.
Its only the same if you think money accomplishes both, which is a valid take on things, I just dont agree with that myself.
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.
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.
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.
Would it? You can live without a kidney
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.
Source on getting blood for free from donating? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I’ve just never heard of it.
Read the comment I replied to.
I misunderstood. I thought you were saying it’s a real thing rather than discussing the idea. Thanks!
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.
The testing may be more expensive to the point that it’s not worth it. But if they don’t make profit on blood they have to test, more blood is always better.
Actually aren’t they testing the blood anyway? I used to be very poor and I would sell my plasma twice a week. $30 for the first visit and $40 for the second. They tested all the plasma. Plasma “donation” centers are mad corrupt. I wasn’t trying to help anyone I just desperately needed the money.
What the heck is a chief philanthropy officer?
They get wealthy people to donate.
I always thought philanthropy was a fancy name for prostitution.
Wealthy *friends. Hence a solid position
Donating is idiotic. End of story. If you donate to anything, you’re a moron.
Joker moment
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.
