NonprofitEye

Well would you? No, I'm not talking about volunteering. I mean do what you do every day at your nonprofit, but for free. Yes you have said "I love my job so much that I'd do it even if they didn't pay me". But what if they didn't? A friend of mine recently said that she didn't know people who worked for nonprofits got paid! It bothered her that any of her donation went to someone doing accounting, she had given it to the kids! So here we are worrying about excessive compensation, and she's worrying about compensation period. The fix is in folks. Now that the new 990 is a reality, anyone paid more than $150,000/yr will be highlighted. Yes, this means you. While the average household income in the US still hovers around $36,000, try living in Manhattan or San Francisco (or LA for that matter) on under $100,000. A recent cost-of-living comparison showed a $116,000 salary in LA to be the equivalent of $212,000 in Manhattan. Given numbers ...

Nonprofit Salary Due Diligence: Comparing Nonprofit Compensation to our "for-profit" cousins How did I wander into this strange land where nonprofit executive salaries over $200,000 may be considered excessive? In 2004, the median nonprofit CEO salary was $291,356 [1] (keep in mind that these were in the mid-range salaries): As nonprofit leaders we must perform our due diligence and consider the reasonableness of these for- profit sector salaries. Hmmmm. Let's start with a peak at the AFL-CIO’s “ Executive Pay Watch ”: Alan G. Lafley, of Procter & Gamble earned $ 24,620,600 ; Kenneth I. Chenault American Express earned $ 23,619,693 ; Charles O. Prince of Citigroup Inc. $ 22,994,729 ; William B. Harrison of JPMorgan Chase & Co. earned $ 22,338,815 ; Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America earned $ 22,027,984. Compare these to your salary! [1] Chronicle of Philanthropy, September 30, 2004 Executive Pay Rises Modestly “Trend could continue as IRS...

Who can put Jesus, Confucius, Dr. Strange, Emma Goldman and Eliza Doolittle all in the same thought? Read on as a Nonprofit Eye reader (Janet) responds to last weeks post: Applying Karma Yoga in the Workplace : Ah grasshopper, with the dawn of awakening knowledge comes the morning fog of obscured certainty save for one truth: all is karma. Or, as they put it in the Fram oil filter commercials: pay me now or pay me later . It may be possible to use a Calvinist metric to evaluate one's life choices: those who make the best choices are demonstrating their closeness to nirvana. Or not. Is the path to enlightenment so easy to discern? If only it were so. We look at choices others make and then compare our own actions and motives. It is strangely remarkable that very few of us , in our own estimation, ever live up to the standards we esteem in others . We mistake the simple answer and the shortest route as the one true path: the person who washes the dishes or cleans the toilets without ...

Here's the article I was trying to write in Nonprofit Doublespeak/Excessive Compensation : Who here is a compensation specialist? Not me, but I know there is a science to it. Salaries aren't (usually) plucked out of thin air. They are determined, not just by mean and median, but by geography, skills, the market and scope of responsibility. Therefore, before we evaluate whether a $200,000+ salary could be appropriate for a non-profit executive, let us go through three steps: STEP ONE: CONTEXT Start with some stats cut and pasted from the "Economic Statistics Briefing Room" section of the White House's website... Median household income was $46,326 in 2005, up 1.1 percent from 2004 after adjusting for inflation. This is the first annual increase in real median household income since 1999. Since 1967, the first year for which household income statistics are available, real median household income was up 30.9 percent How does that break down by ethnicit...

WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH $200,000 IS EXCESSIVE COMPENSATION How did I wander into this strange land where nonprofit executive salaries over $200,000 may be considered excessive? When you are a lone voice standing against the crowd you are likely to be labeled a) schizophrenic (R.D. Laing [1] ); b) a terrorist (G.W. Bush); c) mental-patient (Ken Kasey); d) paranoid (Sydney Pollak); e) neurotic (Freud); f) a poltergeist (Spielberg). In the movies (at least the movies of the 60’s and 70’s) when you stand by your guns against all odds you are a hero (especially if you triumph in the end). I’m thinking of Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; RollerBall; One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, etc. Even fairly recent movies, such as The Matrix, speak to the issue of a hidden reality which we are either afraid (or not permitted) to see. Sadly, in that film, the “false” reality is so powerful one has to take a drug (the red pill) to b...

SOLVING THE NONPROFIT IDENTITY CRISIS: THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE by pam ashlund When will nonprofits learn what is common knowledge to politicians? Modern political strategy stands on three pillars (according to Wikipedia): M essage, M oney, M achine. The entry-level campaign strategist understands that the second two won’t come until the first pillar is set up...establish the clear message (and ideally condense it into a catchy sound bite). Let’s face it, we have an uphill battle on money and machine. If we raise too much money-- unrelated business tax , if we raise too little-- program cuts , if we spend it promoting our cause-- misuse of funds ; if we hire savvy leaders— Excessive Compensation ! If we hit the streets- unallowable costs ; if we use our volunteer activists? Lobbying ; If we hook up with local politicians? Loose your tax-exempt status! But Message? There are no barriers in our way here. Who are we? What do we want to be? And once we know why we are here…what...