To feel outraged at my friends re charity salaries?

[Pissedoffandbored]

Have a group chat going with a load of my girlfriends. There have been some additions to the group chat this week, some I know well and others are just acquaintances. One girl I don’t know sent a link to published salaries for charities. Girl didn’t know I work for a National Charity in a senior position and slated the amount I earn saying people don’t deserve to earn more than PM. At this point I interjected making her aware of my position and she proceeded to have a go at me. I defended my position but most of my friends agreed I earned too much since I worked for a charity.

So AIBU to be pissed off? Also, is this the general consensus or are my mates just dick heads?

@DonkeyHohtay, perhaps you could elaborate as to how we’re “clueless”?

if you are getting paid more than the prime minister and more than 5 times what the lowest paid member of your workforce is paid, then you are getting paid too much. Noone needs more than £100k a year. Noone.
and charities and the public sector should be setting an example against greed, not aping the private sector.

Noone needs more than £100k a year. Noone.

Why do you say that?

I work for a large Charity in the health and social care sector and we are massively under paid considering we are the minions that keep the charity going and providing a service to the most vulnerable people in our society. The lowest level staff are being paid living wage but even that is a kick In the teeth for the work they do. They literally have people's health and well-being and sometimes their lives in their hands! I have a slightly higher paid role which is the massive amount of £1.80 more per hour and have a huge responsibility in managing staff and the services we provided, basically if it all goes wrong it's my head on the chopping block and I'm earning under 20k a year.
So as much as I don't doubt roles such as CEO etc are important to charities I can't help but feel that especially in the charity I work for the ones who actually do the day to day running are forgotten about! It's now affecting massively the quality of the staff we are attracting and also retaining staff is almost impossible as they can move on and get a job that pays so much better.
The Health and social care sector is about on its knees and if the big wigs in my charity are earning over 150k then it really does make me sick tbh

The clueless are the people who think charities should have CEOs managing multi million pound budgets on a salary which is a quarter - or less - than the going rate.

Who dint appreciate that there's a lot more to charity than shaking a tin and giving money to the poor. Or the sick. Or animals.

Who have never volunteered or been involved with a charity for any length of time but who are emerge experts on everything charity related.

And quite simply, people who don't understand the basic concept of paying peanuts to attract monkeys.

Nope, I don’t buy this about needing to pay private sector salaries to NGO staff. Stop asking for donations at least, if you want to operate like the private sector. This is not what people donate for.

They are borderline dickheads. They don’t really understand. Most charity & public sector charities pay less than private sector and even if salaries are high they are underpaid. Sorry you felt like u had to argue this. I’d have left em to it. There’s no educating some people...

But running charities like big businesses & rewarding the top staff accordingly (ie far far far more than the lowest paid in the organisation) just leads to ‘business like’ behaviour- selfishness, corruption & exploitation of the vulnerable they were initially set up to help. I will never donate to big charities with high paid CEOs - they are usually rotten to the core.

There are good and bad charities and there are good and badly run private companies. There are good and bad staff in both sectors and good and bad chief execs in both sectors. None of which is an argument to pay good people in good charities a low wage.... Overall salaries are lower in not for profits. Both DH and I have worked in both sectors, I've seen shocking leadership and management in both (and great leadership too). BUT a good leader can make a huge difference to 'a cause', get more research funded, change policy faster or more profoundly, create innovations etc etc. They do this by really really knowing their stuff and having a varied skills set. I have seen many examples where big hitters (often from finance it must be said) have come to the charity sector wth a willy waving attitude that they'll 'show them how's it's done'. Engaging and influencing civil society is actually quite complex. You can't manage multiple stakeholders in a neat McKinsey/lean 6 sigma kinda way... It's not making widgets..most charities are addressing complex multifaceted problems which are hugely interrelated (often with other complex messy problems). I certainly don't think good charity leaders are over paid given this context.
It is not 'better' to donate money to small charities who have lower overheads/admin costs if those charities are ineffective or replicating what is already being done. Very very often small charities are set up in response to a tragic death (usually by the parent involved who is often and upper middle class professional who believes they can "make a difference'). It's horribly sad but it doesnt mean that just because all time is donated that try are most effective at getting change to happen.

This is why I won't donate to large charities whilst people do work hard the larger a charity the more is spent on admin etc. It may only be a small percentage of the total donations but that still amounts to a lot of money that could be spent on need rather than running costs.

You do realise the bigger the need the more admin is needed to meet demand. If you don't pay for enough staff, IT,equiment, logistics, training, office space, recruitment you are unable to meet demand therefore those in need go without or receive poor support.

@TheNavigator really? selfish corrupt behaviour? Because Oxfam were shit all big charities must be awful. That's really quite a lot of assumptions and stereotyping going on there. It's akin to saying I was once ripped off by Irish builders so now my assumption is that all Irish builders are robes con men and rip-off merchants. You're simply extrapolating about something that you cannot know

YNBU. Your friends are being short sighted not to realise that charities need to offer competitive pay to get the skills they need.

I wonder how many of your friends would feel the same if they were working for a charity. I imagine those charity workers who earn what appears to be very good salaries could earn even more if they worked for a a non-charitable organisation.

The same sorts of comments are made about all sorts of people - even people like teachers ("what are they moaning about. They finish at 3.30 and get long holidays"), nurses, or indeed anyone who works for a public service ("gold plated pensions", "job for life", etc, etc).

This sort of talk is a delight for that very small section of society who earn millions of pounds via huge salaries and bonuses - even when their work performance has been poor. It's very useful for other, much smaller fry, to be picked on and demonised so as to take attention away from those who are really taking the lion's share.

It is possible to find information on the net re the outgoings, salaries, etc and income of various charities, to see if there is a correlation between higher rates of pay for senior officers and higher net income.

I think it is very unkind, particularly of your friends, to have joined in with the criticism. Again, I wonder if they would be so altruistic as to work for a charity and be happy to manage on a salary significantly less than they could get in a private, profit-making company. I'm sure most people would love to do meaningful work that helps people but perhaps not enough to forego a large chunk of their potential income, especially at a time when housing and other necessities are so expensive.

@makingmammaries what about all the charities that don’t take donations? Or don’t rely on them for income? Does it matter what they pay their staff?

@nuitdesetoiles a NHS consultant, with salary plus merit awards could well be earning in excess of £150k per year. Do you really believe even those skills are not worth it?

So why are you here? You obviously don’t care for opinions. You sleep well. So cya. Your so far up your own ass and you infuriate me. Please give generously to line your pockets!!

@ivartheboneless
That's my feelings.

It's easy to say 'but the markets demand I get paid X' but then in that position the CEO has the authority to pay their front line, lowest paid workers more, give them sick pay etc. And yet somehow many of them manage to justify not doing that.

They can be paid an appropriate salary for their skills and role, but they're morally questionable if they accept large salaries for themselves whilst doing nothing for those at the bottom of the pile (so to speak).

@DonkeyHohtay Why do people with a different view have to be clueless?

I have an issue with seeing well qualified friends apply for jobs at charities, accepting a slightly lower rate because it's a charity and it's the sort of job they want to do, going for an interview and being tols they didn't get the job because they 'lack experience' (not true), then getting offered a 0.5/0.6 role doing the job they've applied for but as a volunteer! Apparently it will give them experience and help them get a foot in the door. So they're expected to give up half their working week to volunteer (because the charity doesn't do sessions volunteers for 1 evening a week conveniently) in order to possibly be considered when there is next a job.
If there is a job to do for 50% of a working week then there is a part time vacancy. Why should someone pay themselves loads, pat themselves on the back for how great they are at their job whilst not valuing the front line staff or expecting qualified professionals to work for free?

I’ve just looked up CEO salaries for charities and I was surprised to see they’re all on massive salaries- all over £120k and a few over £200k so op salary is about right. If they ensure the charity performs well, why not? Myself and my hubby thinks the PM should get paid the salary of a CEO from the private sector to attract decent people - business people. The job doesn’t pay enough to attract the calibre it should.

@nuit - I’m in business development and it’s a highly skilled job if you are good at it and certainly not for most people. There are lots of people in commercial roles that aren’t cut out for it but it’s not an easy job at all,

There should be a lot of scruitiny of third sector wages, especially those higher up. What with the tax breaks and now having to produce ever more donations to fund the wages it's become almost become a ponzi scheme in some areas.

I'm not saying someone isn't worth 150K a year, I'm just saying there should definitely be more scrutiny. A lot of the time those on sometimes insane wages compared to the private sector are usually overlooked when people complain about the wealth gap.

yes I agree with what hettie said, mumsnet threads involving money always have so many posters who believe it is immoral to earn anymore than they do. Who do you think is more likely to get into a war torn area, the Red Cross, or a small charity based in the UK with no workforce experienced in that situation or people on the ground?

So why are you here? You obviously don’t care for opinions. You sleep well. So cya. Your so far up your own ass and you infuriate me. Please give generously to line your pockets!!

Wow you wasted 2 minutes of you life posting a very lame uneducated insult.
Yay you.

Also @nuit, Sales staff bring the money lets not forget and are the most important part of most organisations, so paid accordingly,

@Passthecherrycoke: what about all the charities that don’t take donations? Or don’t rely on them for income? Does it matter what they pay their staff?’
No, possibly it doesn’t, if they are not waving sob stories in poor people’s faces to persuade them to give.

@hettie sadly it is not just Oxfam - also Save the Children - a report showed sexual abuse of local women was endemic in the overseas aid sector. But overpaid CEOs can sleep at night, so that is ok.

Any politician in it for the money should be automatically disqualified from holding office. The old adage about paying peanuts and getting monkeys is demonstrably untrue, if decent salaries automatically attracted talent the House of Commons would be of a much higher calibre.

YANBU OP. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would think employees of an organisation with a charitable purpose should earn less money than those of an organisation whose purpose is to make a profit.

I suspect that many of the posters on this thread are thinking of a poor individual making a donation to charity from their own limited resources and aren't aware that many charities hold significant legacies and investments, and receipt corporate donations as well as donations from HNWI, all of which need to be carefully managed as well as the charity's other operations for its charitable purposes.

We live in an economy where people deserve to be paid a fair market rate for their services. As long as they do a good job, why should anyone begrudge them?