Charity bosses salaries

[MsChalloner]

AIBU to think charity bosses shouldn't earn more than the Prime Minister? She appears to earn about £150k. Am I being naive to think this?

We also couldn't have used volunteers as working with ex alcoholics, ppl with mental health issues, young ppl in care, learning disabilities. The organisation worked mainly with councils across the county and had contracts with them, providing services.

beetle I totally agree. Volunteers are vital to a charity but it’s rare that an effective and efficient charity making real change can be run on volunteers alone. For a start, getting the right volunteers whose skill set matches the needs of the charity and who make a full commitment is incredibly difficult. Need someone to write a funding application “sorry, I’m on holiday for 3 weeks so can’t”. Need someone to attend a training session “sorry I volunteer at CAB on a Tuesday”, need someone to develop a database to help you increase your marketing “ooh I might have some time on Tuesday in 3 weeks for an hour or so but I might be having lunch with my friend from Norfolk”. Have an emergency on a Tuesday in August “sorry can’t do school holidays”. It’s incredibly hard to get volunteers to do the jobs you need when you need them at the time you need them. The mindset of a volunteer is often that they’re doing the charity a favour and therefore they only want to do what they want to do. Running an efficient and sustainable charity which is able to grow year on year needs both volunteers and paid staff. Staff who are paid a fair wage for a fair job and £20k for a full time CEO is ridiculous, it’s not a reflection of the level of responsibility and actually does a disservice to those who do take a proper salary. That’s not to say all CEO’s should be on 6 figure salaries, far from it but the salary should reflect the skills and experience of the CEO whose responsibility it is to ensure the sustainability of the charity. It undermines the fact that the role is the head of a business answerable to benefactors, trustees and finders.

Thanks for all the responses. I agree that people should of course be paid fairly for their skills - and of course I think that bosses of charities should be paid appropriately. It is just (and perhaps using the PM's salary was a bad example - I just meant that it was a good salary for someone with much responsibility) that some of the salaries for charity bosses I see feel too much when so much of their charity's incomes and support comes from volunteers and donations etc etc. Good though to hear everyone's views though, and I do do my bit for a large national charity! Thank you.

Mincemeat - I know public schools are charities but I dont believe they should be or some think tanks. Many professionals in the sector think the same as me (And yes I am a senior professional in a related field myself and generally support charities paying for expertise and experience).

Check how many pupils are on bursaries - ie receiving free places. Very few - and the majority of pupils are paying huge amounts. Eton is around £30K a year isn't it? The average boarding school fee is now higher than the average salary in the UK.

I was shocked about the Nuffields CEO's salary - but then realised its because they run a lot of hospitals and gyms. But then we havent even got into housing associations check them out. Difficult judgements all.

Why can’t we compare charities to the Salvation Army? Surely they both are working to help the poor and the dispossessed? Why is it fine (and possible) for Salvation Army leaders to earn low salaries,but necessary for leaders of other charities to earn 6 figure salaries? I would far rather donate to the Salvation Army!!

I dont think the salvation army is comparable, they are priests and given a home

Not sure whether that is relevant as the Oxfam big shots appear to have (luxurious) accommodation provided for them too! As a teacher I do not feel comfortable donating money to an organization whose employees earn more than I do!

Not sure charities should even exist in the first place.

The charity sector, or "third sector" as they are called, are a business like any other. They have staff, overheads, and associated costs (advertising, rent, etc). Whatever is left over is "donated" to whatever the going concern is. But it's not as simple as that either.

Live Aid did nothing for the people of Ethiopia. The famine at the time was partly due to enviornmental factors but mostly due to a civil war. The money raised was sent to the Ethopian government, who subsequently were able to raise the most powerful military force in the countries history and pulverise the rebelling factions, laying waste to most of the crop producing areas in the process. Geldof himself refused to be interviewed on the facts when the story broke.

Nothing has changed much, even the UK government has admitted to parliment that it cannot account for over 60% of the "Foreign Aid" budget. Once the money leaves the Uk it literally disappears.

Think about all the Charities which currently ply their trade on day time tv. Its just business as usual for them, whatever the "crisis" they will be there. Emotive slogan in one hand, chugging bucket in the other. Nothing ever gets resolved, feeding starving people by dropping rice from a plane isnt going to make the landacape they live on capable of sustaining the people who live in it. Either you drop food infinitely or you move the people, but giving money to foreign governments has never solved any such crisis. There has never been an "Oxfam democracy".

The directors of such charities will say they are running a multi-million pound, international company and demand a comparible salary to those in similar roles in traditional business. However, unlike capitalist ventures whose shareholders demand accountability, third sector organisations answer to nobody. At least nobody who has any interest or knowledge of whats happening with the money donated. Which is why we have the current Oxfam scandal.

Do you think that behaviour is isolated to just one charity?

So no, I dont think charity bosses deserve their over-inflated salaries. And I dont think the charity sector provides any meaningful value in the long term to the people it is claiming to help.

I think that's how I see it too. I don't think charities on a large scale should exist. Then they wouldn't need massive salaries to " fund raise". The funds could just be raised much much much more efficiently in our taxes. Charities are such an inefficient way of getting anything done. Imagine if every tiny government office was run by someone on a 6 figure salary. If there was say 10 different government homeless offices , each run by someone on 200,000 pounds. It would seem ludicrous.

I don’t think they need those salaries, and particularly not in the charity sector.
As a teenager a girl in my year was going on holiday to Barbados, as her father was high up in a large charity and doing some kind of work over the summer ( think office job) and was taking his family for the summer with him. I realised as a teenager it was all a big con.
The multinational I used to work for, their top executives in the US had security details for them and their families, chauffeurs etc. !, and they were on millions in salaries not hundreds of thousands.
Prominent charity in the North East, the chief executive suspected of alleged embezzlement...why give these people your hard earned cash..
Money given abroad, seldom ends up where it’s supposed to.
And don’t get me started on the Riun for Life stuff

To be honest as I get older I think the government is best placed to provide aid - and if we can influence our politicians what needs done, as the electorate, then that is the answer. I have been shocked at how much is spent on policy for big charities as opposed to what should be the core work which is why I am sure most people give. I have given to Oxfam in the past but that to me has been to feed people who are hungry not pay for policy wonks.
It seems to me that in some of the big charities the people at the top are in a bubble. And perhaps that is why government is best placed to allocate aid abroad as they have best links, army support etc for the crises - and are accountable. (Or should be).

So what I mean is - Slanetylor and Justmyownself - I agree with you both. Even for other charities - beyond overseas aid - even to do with health and heritage. I think there is an argument for it all to be under state control (and accountability)....especially when you consider how much the state contributes to these sectors in any event.

I think their salaries are far too high. I'm going to stop giving to any of the bigger charities I've decided. Apart from the odd donation to a charity shop. When you think about it, all these volunteers working for nothing and those bosses on inflated salaries. Something wrong there.

Policy is essential work for charities - if you don’t understand that then you know very little about how government and politics work. This is how the voices and needs of disadvantaged groups and people who can’t advocate for themselves get heard. And even when they do get heard too often government don’t do much about it if there aren’t votes in it.

Definitely a lot of what the charity sector does now would be better done by government. Not all of it though, there are some sectors where being an independent organisation (even if you do have state funding) allows the people in it to stick the boot into government policies when they're causing problems. And to that end, state control would be a terrible idea. It depends on the nature of the work itself really.

Also, whether the people receiving those salaries 'need' them is a bad way to come to a decision about whether they ought to be paid them. The question is how little can you pay to get someone suitable, which is not the same thing at all.