BU over charity director salaries

[Happydoingitjusttheonce]

Is the criticism shortsighted? CEO of NSPCC criticised for earning £167k. At its peak a few years ago the charity was turning over £150m. Anyone with the skill and experience to manage that level of income could be remunerated in the private extremely handsomely and much more so than Peter Wanless is. Do people really think the charity could get someone in for buttons, or for nothing, to do that job?

@Grey

They operate on the same principle, despite the shareholders. It is pretty much the default MO for most organizations, though charities don't need to do this and thankfully quite a few smaller ones don't.

Vitalogy - because if charities didn't have to pay bills, or rent, or wages for their staff then they would exclusively be the plaything of wealthy individuals. I refuse to believe you think that's ideal.

YANBU.

Honestly the pay is already pretty low in the majority of cases. Most people take pretty big pay cuts to head up charities, and in the process take on more work than ever. I know someone who makes a relatively high salary as the head of a major charity, but it's literally less than 5% of what he could easily make in a different sector.

If you offer less you limit yourself to people who aren't remotely qualified and people who've already made their money and are now retired and looking to basically volunteer 80 hours a week. The former is a recipe for complete disaster, and the latter is a very small pool to draw from.

Violet The masses are already the playthings of the wealthy.

The massive corporations that are the energy companies could offer free gas/elec/water to charities, the government could put that in place tomorrow but they won't.

Can't remember the salary quote early on in the thread £150,000 was it, no one needs that much to live on.

Give cash, not stuff.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/25/disaster-aid-cash-not-clothing-relief-hurricane-harvey

Maybe some people have stuff, time and shelter to give but not cash.

There is literally no reason why energy companies should give charities free utilities. It makes no sense whatsoever to do so.

I have to say I think it's worth making the distinction (despite what I've said about the salaries being appropriate) that the casts majority of charity employees (including CEOS) aren't turning down Goldman Sachs work there because they love the cause.

The standards tend to be far below what such corporates would expect. I've interviewed a lot of finance people from the charity sector and they've been overwhelmingly poor. I'm working with a brilliant charity CEO at the moment but he's not turning down Tesco to be there. Not even close.

Vitalogy - absolutely and to those people I would be encouraging, as long as they accept that giving to charity is about what the charity and their beneficiaries need, not what makes the giver feel good (yes, middle class parents making your sullen teenager volunteer in a homeless shelter over Xmas, I'm talking to you).

But you're not saying that. You're saying it's better to give stuff instead of cash. Posters are explaining why this isn't accurate and is actually a quite harmful message.

Charities are just a reflection of the huge gap between senior executive pay and the rest of the workforce.

It breeds inequality.

The more I hear about charity's these days the less I give, I used to contribute monthly to Cancer Research and did for 25 + years, I got sick of 'if you could double your donation we could do so much more' and 'why not leave us your house'. When my Dad died 27 years ago I gave them half of my inheritance.

I was executor for a childless couple who left a substantial property split between 2 charities, the sale fell through twice due it not being enough for the greedy bastards, this was 2009 when the market had collapsed.

Those asking about ring fencing money -
It is possible to code your direct debit when it comes in. So if you donate £5 a month for research and they get 50k donations a month £5 will be allocated to the research pot. Its a right hassle for the charity because it means more admin and they not allocating money to staff and overheads, which is the hard bit to fundraise for, but you can do it.
To a pp who asked how that would work, yes if everyone did that there would be problems. But not everyone is going to do that. Bear in mind that research costs include staff costs because someone needs to do the actual research.
I'm not saying that i think requesting your money be ring fenced is a good idea. But you can make the request.
Personally i thank you should trust charities to allocate the donations where it is most needed, including paying staff at the minimum a living wage and at best a competitive wage.

I think people lack understanding of how charities work.
I think donating items e.g. food bank can work well but mostly less efficient. I can't remember which charity but one explained it in the following way.
You need to give a sleeping bag to Syria:
A) people bring you a sleeping bag in the UK. You pay for a plastic bin at a community fuel and have to pay someone to collect it, fuel to pick it up etc.You employ staff to sort the donations an need a place for this. You lose some sleeping bags because they are full of holes from people's lofts, or some people have bought new ones but they are unsuitable because people generally chose the cheaper ones that aren't water proof etc. The sleeping bag is okay (not perfect but okay), you now need to store it so you have to pay for that. You drive it there (driver and fuel needed). You pay someone to unload it then load it on to a plane. You pay for the transportation across the sea. Someone then has to unload it, store it again. Then you pay someone to distribute it. More fuel
Or
2) people give you 15 pounds. You employ someone to buy a proper sleeping bag at a reduced price because your a charity in country. This supports local jobs etc and means the sleeping bag isn't about right but is right.

But kiss they're not actually doing that are they? I bet that's a marketing gimmick, like saying you're adopting a whale when you're donating money to conservation projects.

Unless truely ring fenced- which requires a contract clearly stating the uses of the money and often a level of auditing to confirm this is happening- they're just putting it in their income "pot". Even if their accounts have 2 seperate lines- research only donations and research only expenditure- these are just presentational.

In regards to cuddly toys.. They make people donate sadly.
I used to work in an overseas educational with things like world challenge etc. Students would pay an extortianate amount to come and "volunteer" doing some random task e.g. painting a class room. Tbh we didnt need random 16 year old students attempting to teach a curriculum or building a classroom (just like the uk). What we needed was their money.
They would raise about 4000 pounds or whatever by the time all their flights, food accommodation etc came out of that we got a small amount. It was much more useful to us than the unskilled man power(that we had plenty of locally).We could put that money into training local teachers, breaking poverty cycles etc

However no one would donate 250 pounds randomly to us,the volunteers etc were the easiest way of getting that.

It's the same as bake sales etc. We are capable of giving that 1.50 or whatever to charity but don't tend to untill someone offers you a slice of home made cake. We know McMillan or whatever exists but that's the point when people donate.

Bubblebubblepop - Well, at my charity, if someone requests that their money only goes to X project then yes, it's earmarked with finance and only the budget for that project is credited.

So if we raise £1000 for project X, and £50 for project Y, and X is underfunded and Y is underfunded we can't move money from Project X and will instead have to make cuts from Project Y.

I'm not sure how much more ring fenced it can be.

Bubble... Think it depends on the organisation. I've worked in private sector and not for profit, there has been poor practice and excellent individual performance in both. If someone has made a career in the third sector they are unlikely to compete for a 'tesco' CEO job, partly because they don't have the right skills and experience. However, charity boards often seem very taken with the idea of poaching senior staff from the private sector. Assuming that a hedge fund manager (or whatever) has the skills to manage a complex large charity does not always go well. The 'private good', 'state & 3rd sector bad' rhetoric surely must be dead by now surely (banking crisis, scandals in care homes, serco and g4s in the prison sector/social security screwing up and over charging......) Good management and leadership should be fostered and encouraged across all sectors. My observation is that we are unusually poor at this compared to other nations. Not sure why, perhaps it's too do with the remnants of class, the them and us dogma of employee/employer and or the large wealth gap? Working efficiently and effectively towards the common good seems nigh on impossible...

I have found a fair amount of ex high fliers in charities are there because their ex industry/company/jobs has not been great when it comes to working parents. Some are brilliant - but not enough.

Not all charities are good - but where I worked was fantastic for mums/dads.

Last post I promise ( I keep reading and wanting to comment!)
I currently am associated with a small charity that has paid staff.
People fuss about the amount we pay on staff but we employ people who have to have a good deal of knowledge about the subject and qualifications. We could have volunteers yes but that's transient and we need really good permanent staff.

We recently paid a charity consultant a
sum of money that seems excessive to help manage us. We received complaints for this and they are right. It seems like a lot of money. However as someone said earlier he's filled in grants etc and has earnt us at least triple his wage in efficiencies and grants etc in the first 2 years. If we didn't have him yes we would have spent less money on staffing etc but our income was much less! We weren't running as well as we could without him.

Equally people are shocked that our staff building is quite nice but it's a new building due to some specific requirements. We were throwing money away attempting to repair our old building. It was built efficiently (it's not like Google hq or something!) And is perfect for us. However people have an idea that we should have almost built a deliberately "not nice" building because we are a charity. We have to fight to get new computers because people think it should be all about the animals but actually our computers were terrible, unable to do what we needed and tying up valuable staff time because they were from the 90s!

The building has paid fund raisers that people baulk at however once again. But once again, they are worth it. The money we spend on them they make back several times over.

People get annoyed when we spend money on anything but the animals but there needs to be an infrastructure around them. We could have all volunteers, awful staff buildings, less money coming in etc but we'd be doing it for "the love of it" and people would prefer that even if it's less good for our animals.

But you're not saying that. You're saying it's better to give stuff instead of cash. I thought I was just putting another point of view across for people that had things other than money to give. I don't mean dumping random stuff on their door step, you can phone up or go in and ask, or take stuff you think may be useful, if they don't want it then fair enough.

There is literally no reason why energy companies should give charities free utilities. It makes no sense whatsoever to do so. That comment makes no sense. No wonder the world's in a mess.

Drives are very very useful for charities. Where there is a need for say, warm jackets for local kids at a drop-in centre who don't have winter clothes, a charity can quickly get on the phones and get donations in and distribute them fast. So yes, 'stuff' can be very useful - or give donations of items to a charity shop or sell on eBay and donate the money.

A friend worked at the Red Cross and said that people would often turn up as their offices offering to donate blood (there and then).

Can't remember the salary quote early on in the thread £150,000 was it, no one needs that much to live on.

That's true, but as we have already established, you need to set the bar slightly higher than 'this is enough for me to keep body and soul together'. So that's not a remotely helpful observation.

As for the comments about giving items, well, regardless of what a person has to give or not, sometimes items are not useful. They potentially are if you've checked that the place you're donating to needs them, and has storage space for them, and can sort them. Provided you're not just using it as an excuse to get rid of your old crap guilt free of course, which the reality is that some people do. But yes, in some situations it's helpful. Your local women's refuge might well be in need of towels. They're also in need of donations to help them build a sustainable income of course, but that doesn't mean your towels won't be very welcome.

However, in others it really isn't. If a charity isn't set up to take physical donations and all you have to give is stuff, the best thing for you to do is to not give it to them. If you have time too, perhaps you could sell the stuff and donate the money to them, although then you'll have to take the risk of them using it to pay a utility bill or a cancer researcher.

And your items are going to be no use at all in assisting a charity that provide specialist services not things. For them, you either donate your time if you have a skill they need, your money, or you don't burden them with things they don't need. Those are the choices.

Violet that's just cost centre accounting and is a good way to show that certain projects wash their face financially but ultimately, when you look at the books, it's all just flowing through as income abd expense.

Vita-

"There is literally no reason why energy companies should give charities free utilities. It makes no sense whatsoever to do so. That comment makes no sense. No wonder the world's in a mess."

How does it not make sense? What does your world being a mess comment mean?

I am at a charity today. Do you know what their utility bill is? £300k for their main office. They are a housing association and pay millions in tenant utilities too. You think the utility companies should let them have that for nothing?

It's fairly easy to set up a charity. You think that utilities companies should support all of them with free gas/ elec/ water/ business rates?

I don't understand how you can't see what a bonkers idea that is

I don't think they'll miss it. 300k is peanuts to their billions. I'm not sure why you're making excuses for them or maybe you've never thought about it before.

The world is in a mess because we have such things as charities in the first place. We've got more than enough resources for everyone.

www.theguardian.com/money/2017/aug/31/profit-margins-at-big-six-energy-firms-hit-highest-level-on-record

I don't understand how you can't see what a bonkers idea that is Yeah well I'm not the only one that thinks like that, maybe if more thought like this we could get things sorted!