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.
I’ve given up on charity. They’ve lobbied sites like Charity Navigator to not count executive compensation as a negative. I’m sick of capitalism ruining everything.
The only places I donate money to are local food banks, Sally Ann’s, homeless initiatives and random people living on the streets.
Da fuck any of the big organized non-profits get any of my money.
random people living on the streets
That’s where I’m at as well. 100% guarantee all the money is going to a person in need.
Yup. I also hold to the belief that what the person considers their most important need is none of my fucking business. Once I give it I no longer have a right to determine how the money is used.
Nothing is 100%. Obviously it is not a common thing, but organized begging is a thing. Another problem is that your ″bread″ money could become ″meth″ money.
And?
Nobody made me god to decide for others what they should do.
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.
Management and marketing bloat is extremely common for nonprofits, unfortunately. Especially large ones.
Ones that don’t do that exist too, but it’s a thing you have to be wary of.
It’s a classic moral hazard of private non-profits. You generate income from press and marketing, so you have an incentive to invest more in those parts of your business. The Zoo Wildlife Alliance doesn’t get any money from the wildlife.
But now you’ve got a marketing team that wants to grow, in order to generate more revenue. So they need more revenue themselves. But it’s “justified” because they can claim credit for every dollar brought in. The bigger the marketing staff gets, the more sway they have within the organization as a whole. So it prioritizes growth for the sake of growth, rather than asking where the money is going.
And all along, the fundraising leadership is justifying higher and higher compensation as a percentage of groups revenue.
Eventually, you’re just a millionaire pan handler, asking money so you can ask for money. That’s a totally organic consequence of unregulated industry.
Yup.
And honestly direct regulation is hard here. Those are the two expenses that grow out of control, because it’s really hard to measure how much marketing or managing you need exactly. No empirical proof of overspending means no legal case against the directors.
Ideally, they’d have to provide something like the MER (management expense ratio) you see on investment funds. Charity kind of is like an investment on the behalf of the greater good, if you think about it.
My wife works for a non-profit where the Executive Director (CEO if you will) cannot make more than 5x what the lowest paid person makes. Wish more non-profits would adopt something similar
Well we don’t know if the lowest paid employee makes $254,927 at this one
That’s the Janitor. He drives Bentleys off the pier into the Pacific Ocean every second saturday.
His name is Keith
The head of the American Red Cross makes about 750k, last I heard.
Whether or not that’s justified either, I think we can all agree it’s a little bit larger of an organization with more responsibility to juggle.
Some of these charities are approaching large corporations in size and complexity. Getting people with experience to run them can be hard and the people that do do it often do it as a charitable contribution.
do do it often do it
Had to read that one a couple times 😅
Oh yeah, I wasn’t on my a game at 4.50 in the morning
I don’t think it’s wrong though 😁👍
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.
Talent and experience isn’t that rare. Nor does executive compensation correlate with performance.
Whether it does or not is irrelevant; what matters is the perception among executives that it does.
I think we’ve been shown there is a solution to that perception.
I know a few things which ought to matter a whole lot more to executives.
But Elon said CEOs are the most important people because they create the value.
The pay correlates directly to how hard you are to replace.
Again, no. In most businesses the hard to replace workers are not promoted because they can’t be replaced. The ones that can be replaced are the ones who are promoted to management.
I’m not living in america. In my country this really isn’t a thing. Most charities have a sort of “everyone gets the same salary” policy which is usually around the median salary in the country.
This charity was just running a cool project I wanted to donate too. I dont care what the american system is like, no one deserves 1 million a year while there are people starving.
Best not give them your money then based on your principles.
Right?
People complain but then they rarely put there money where there mouth is.
But they are literally doing that by not donating after finding out…
Why not donate to a local charity that might not receive as much, rather than a US based one?
How does not giving that ‘cool project’ money do any good?
Well I’m going to give to another charity obviously.
Because I don’t want half my donation to go towards massive salaries.
That’s a reasonable concern. For context, from their 2023 financial report, they spend $391 million on everything they do; even if you add all those salaries you posted together, that’s still about 99 cents out of every dollar going where you want it to go.
I don’t disagree that it’s an obscene salary, but for the most part that’s how the big charities work in the US. You have to either go with small, local charities or shrug and accept that around 1% of your donation will go to someone getting overpaid. It sucks!
Cool. My second option was an australian charity that is running a similar project and their highest salary seems to be 80k USD. So I’ll go with that one.
Top exec salary feels like a weird thing to focus on. Would it be better to donate to a charity with 50 overpaid middle managers rather than one with an obscenely overpaid c-suite? What if they are all reasonably compensated but spend most of the donations on lavish parties for fundraising?
According to charitynavigator 89.9% of their expenses go to their programs, and the rest is used for fundraising, salaries and other admin costs. This feels more reflective of the organization as a whole
I cannot speak for this charity, but it is highly unlikely that individual donations like yours fund those salaries. Often those positions exist to lobby governments and secure large charitable donations. People like that are hire primarily for their contacts. You could hire a qualified “CEO” to run your org for ~$250k, but they likely won’t have Larry Ellison on speed dial or be the god parent of the kid of a senator, etc, etc.
You want to have friends in high places and friends with loads of money if you are fighting for wildlife preservation because otherwise nobody will even acknowledge your existence.
Great, sounds like they didn’t need that donation money since the C-suite will get them all the rich kickbacks they need. So what’s the problem?
A 501c3 has restrictions on lobbying.
They also have limitations on income beyond donations.
This isn’t a Mozilla situation where there are separate corp and org entities. His salary is most definitely funded by donations in some way.
Note: I do agree with your rationale overall. Money is where money is, unfortunately.
I always hear this argument, and it seems like straight up CEO propaganda. I remember how failing businesses HAVE TO hire multi million dollar CEOs and fire employees becuase how else will they get good leadership!
Motherfucker, your previous CEO also had the same salary and sent you into bankruptcy.
No, a company definitely doesn’t have to pay their CEOs generously, and not all do. The median pay for a CEO is actually about 250k/yr.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes111011.htm
Though if we just look at CEOs from S&P 500 companies, that jumps up to 16 million. There’s going to be a lot of factors involved, from the size of the company to the cost of living in the area. A CEO in San Francisco is probably going to make a lot more than one in Milwaukee.
It’s less propaganda and more just understanding how the capitalist system is intended to function. It applies to other jobs as well, a software engineer can make quite a wide range of pay, depending on who they work for. Then they can also get increased pay for advancing up the ranks of their organization, as promotions often involve raises.
There is a market reason for doing that. If not there competition would’ve hired the budget CEO.
Just wait until you learn how much the US president makes. We should really be outsourcing government officials.
The the amount of work and responsibilities the presidency is actually waaay underpaid. CEOs on the other hand get paid like they run the world, while in reality they are just sucking dick.
In fact CEOs run the world. Think of Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla… You name it.
Thre must be an equivelent to “ate the onion” for “ate the Arrow-Debreu (1954)”
Yeah, it’s a tough call to make. It’s like those car donation things. Like 90% of your car’s value goes to the company managing the sale, but that’s still 10% to the charity that they wouldn’t have anyway. Unless you want to deal with selling your own car, and giving the charity the money, it still does some good.
I suspect a $1M salary isn’t too insane for a CEO if they bring tangible value to the company. Also, with a lack of shareholders to answer to like in a publicly traded company, their motivations probably align with the cause they’re supporting. It’s not like they’re going to sell off a shitload of assets to bump stock price and escape with a golden parachute.
givewell.org ranks charities by their ‘efficiency’ in multiple categories and offers funds for bundled donation according to their constantly updated ranking. Its really cool for finding reputable charities if you are worried about your money going where it is needed.
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.
That’s such bullshit reasoning. They make more than 99.9% of people. I get that not everyone is great, but you are saying 99.9% of people are all talentless hacks that couldn’t do a decent enough job to the extent that the salary savings would be worth it?
Guess my civil engineering degree and 18 years of experience is a worthless pile of shit.
Hypothetically, if you were looking at two civil engineering jobs, and one paid 100k/yr, and another paid 200k/yr, which would you pick?
Would it matter much if any of the construction guys doing the actually construction of your projects made 50k/yr? Are they less talented than you for that?
It’s not so much about “talentless hacks” vs “a decent job” as trying to entice the best person you can afford.
Depends on the job. But I make less than both those numbers. And the construction journeymen make more than me, actually.
Yes, they make less because they are less talented. I completely disagree with your assertion that these executives are more talented. I have yet to meet a business major that wasn’t an absolute moron.
What evidence do you have they are more qualified, besides some paradoxical “they must be because they are in the position” reasoning.?
It’s not an absolute, it’s just an incentive. Talent is also an intangible, it cannot really be measured. Nor does high pay in some way guarantee you will get a talented or qualified person for your position, it just gives you better odds. It’s bait, basically, but you cannot guarantee your bait will work to attract what you want.
I’m not sure of any evidence, I’m not an economist. I’m discussing the theory of how capitalist systems are intended to function. How well they succeed at this is very messy and muddled at best.
Lastly, I actually disagree that our hypothetical construction person makes less because they are less talented. It’s that their skill is in lower demand. They could be extremely talented, but there are simply more of them available, so less needs to be offered to attract them.
Convenient the C-Suite sticks to a theory that massively benefits themselves. Sorry, it’s bullshit.
And there is ample evidence. Look no further than how every other employee is treated. Do you think they could get the best veterinarians by paying say, $300,000/year? Of course. But they don’t because they recognize the diminishing returns of thinking they have to have the best. But somehow the C-suite makes itself immune.
And that goes back to your example. As an engineer, I can tell you that construction trades are in HUGE demand. Same with civil engineers. Yet pay isn’t going up, at least not much.
Executive pay has gone up far faster than pay for regular workers. Sorry, I don’t buy the explanation that somehow they are the only group struggling to to find top candidates.
The CEO does not set his own compensation. He is hired by the owners of whatever company to operate it for them. They ultimately determine the compensation.
I agree there’s no struggle to find top candidates, that’s for sure. That’s partly because the compensation tends to be very good. The trades, which do not compensate as well as a chief executive, are struggling more. If plumbers frequently pulled CEO pay, we would not have a shortage.
Other CEOs that sit on governing boards set the compensation. It’s the same thing.
Sorry, I’ll never buy that it’s fair compensation, especially for a nonprofit charity.
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.
You think a zoo CEO being paid $1.2 million per year is normal? Really???
As someone who has worked at a non profit and works at a low profit company now, the idea that because it’s work we’re passionate about that we should do it for pennies is so toxic, and how teachers, nurses, childcare workers, etc are abused by society. We’re actively out here trying to fix the problems caused by capitalism and the top 10% who are fucking over the world, and we deserve to be fairly compensated, not do it for free because we’re so passionate. I’m not saying OP’s example is right either, but charity workers shouldn’t need to rely on charity to survive, or be so wealthy they didn’t need to get paid.
This completely misrepresents the issue. It is not about working for free. A salary of a million bucks is just insane, regardless of context, be it for a non-profit, a private company or a presidential office. There’s no point of donating money to a cause if it only ends up in the pockets of a CEO who already has way too much of it.
The comment I was responding to said it would be nice if the people running the organizations would do it for free or survival wages. I agree the salaries in OP’s example are extreme, but what I see more often in my industry is burnt out people doing work for survival wages because they’re passionate, while everyone else makes a ton of money.
Those figures definitely ARE outrageous for those positions, or ANY positions.
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
A fully flashed out public service sector could encourage this. If health care and housing and utilities and education were human rights rather than luxuries, you’d have more people who didn’t consider a six figure salary at a for-profit venture a prerequisite for survival.
It’s not like a private company where the owner/CEO can just grab the money
When the board is stacked with friends and family and the job itself is just cronyism, they absolutely can.
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.
The advanced state of finance capitalism and the deplorable state of mass transit and paid leave make financial gifts far more practical than donated labor.
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.
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.
＼(^_^)／
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 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.
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.
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.
They pay cooks less than $20/hour in a city with an average rent of $3000/month. I’ve got no problem passing judgement.
They pay cooks less than $20/hour
So their cooks get paid less than ‘cooks’ at McDonald’s? Fast food minimum wage is $20/hour throughout California.
Why did you put “cooks” in quotes? Do you think fry cooks aren’t cooks? Churning out food in a hot kitchen is work, regardless of what you think of the end product
While most work is hard, and I dunno how bespoke this gig is, there’s a massive difference between a generic fry “cook” and a restaurant line cook/chef.
Most fry cooks, like a Macdonald’s, are a finely tuned production line where most of the food is pre-prepped and premade (most of the “cooking” is done in a factory). The “cooks” in those roles usually just assemble the pre made components, and in the case of fast food, have finely tunes tools to serve their generic menu.
A restaurant cook/chef requires significantly more attention to detail, skill, flexibility, and knowledge because most of the food is made from scratch, using raw ingredients, which is why there are culinary schools. Real restaurants can’t succeed with a kitchen full of deep fryers and teenagers pushing buttons. Naturally, the expectation is that they should be paid more because it requires more skill, knowledge, effort, and dedication.
We’re already making the (existing) distinction between cook/chef though.
There’s no apparent need for a “cook”/cook/chef distinction.
As a chef with 22 years of experience hiring cooks, there is absolutely a distinction. I would have said fast food worker instead of “cook” because the quotes make it feel condescending, but I also do not count experience in fast food as relevant experience when reviewing resumes for a line or prep cook position.
We’re also misusing the word chef a lot in this conversation. Everyone working the line in a kitchen is not a chef. They are cooks. The chefs are the kitchen leadership. There is typically one executive chef and one or two sous chefs below them. I’m simplifying things a bit but that’s the most common structure you’ll find in non-chain/corpo kitchens.
I’m not saying that McDonald’s isn’t hard work - I definitely agree with you there. I was just referring to the fact that McDonald’s food is fairly straightforward to cook such that a teenager with minimal experience can do it, compared to a restaurant where they have many different menu items cooked from scratch and the chefs need more detailed knowledge of the items.
Correct.
For a second I thought this was a hit list.
any list is a hit list if you’re angry enough
Well, if you stab some potatoes, circumcise a cauliflower, and proceed to nunchuck a bag of flour … Then it might just have been a grocery list and now you’re not allowed in the store anymore
There is no rule that a grocery list can not be a hit list too.
Thanks, I just smashed all of my kids’ Christmas gifts.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe, but in reality this almost never happens. The work of many charities is typically attacked by the state and other fascists. The current attack on non-profits is a great example. It’s disappointing but not surprising to see so many libs supporting this. The liberatory goals of charity are directly opposed to the oppressive goals of the state. For example capitalism relies on the hunger that charity purports to oppose.
Indeed , disgusting and out of control. Start taxing their asses.
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.
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.
