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?

It’s one of the reasons I never donate to big charities, Oxfam for instance.

Whatever about bloated salaries in the charity sector, what is really infuriating are the huge pay packets handed out to NHS managers who seem to do little more than have meetings about meetings. The waste is astounding.

If you are earning more than £150k in a charity role you are in the very top of the pay band for senior leaders in that sector. I'm very sorry but, as such, it's hard to have sympathy for you having your salary questioned.

Of course you aren't a multimillionaire FTSE 100 CEO and neither are you are university vice-chancellor with a massive pay rise each year and nice 'loans' for houses but you do get paid much more than most people in your sector.

I think a salary should reflect the amount of responsibility one has.

So, ambulance drivers, police, teachers, firefighters, nurses then? They have a lot of responsibility

To put it in perspective: the Research Scientist discovering that cure for cancer etc will have a PhD but probably earns £20-25K. The salaries for researchers, paid for by these charities, rarely goes over £40K, even for those with a decade of experience. When charities advertise for donations on television or in ad campaigns, they show pictures or interview these researchers with the suggestion that every penny you donate is funding this research. If the executives and admin staff are being paid possibly six times as much, it does look rather morally abhorrent.

I see how you have consistently ignored my quoted comments of yours re 'people apparently not wanting to pay volunteers'

I have not once said this.
Please quote me.

I said "people apparently not wanting to pay staff" volunteers are not paid hence they are volunteers!
You have been quoting a different poster.

and still ignore the fact that the overall trend is people saying that interrogation and justification of such a wage considering the funding model is not a bad thing.

Actually its not.
The trend seems to be that staff are over paid.
Its disgusting.
Staff wages are the reason i dont donate.
They should except lower wages as it is a charity.
Less cash on admin more on the needy.
The OP is not worth it.
Staff are greedy.
You can get volunteers to do the work
Staff ate not in the real world.

There are a few posts about scrutiny and transparency but given that all big charities post their financial costs on line for all to see its already transparent.

You see a different trend and thats fair enough but you are having a go at me because I dont see the trend like you do.
Fine so stop going on at me about it.

I come at this from a slightly different angle - that charities as employers often exploit staff's good will. It's similar in local government- I worked for a council who were not on the national pay scale and EVERY year when they negotiated with us, they trotted out the same crap that every pound more spent on salaries was a pound less spent on services. Ignoring the fact that 85% of the staff lived in the District and spent most of their salaries locally. Frankly, we should ignore the faux outrage of the kind of people who think we should probably work for nothing

It's totally wrong to be paid a rediculously high salary when working for a Charity! I know a lot of people who have very little but give a few pounds a month to charities thinking it's helping those in need when In fact it's paying staff for luxury homes and holidays!!!

If the charity you work for didn’t pay you that amount, they’d pay someone else. This is just the green eye wrapped up in moral indignation. None of anyone else’s business. Judgemental bitches!

YABU.

Charities should not run like business, they have advantages of not paying rates, taxes and benefit from government grants. They also have increasingly explored the vulnerable - they should do the work of those who wish to donate, not aim to get people to donate.

Evyerone working at a charity should do so free of charge. If this means the charity sector changes to be small local charities, all the better. After all, we expect parish councillors to work for free, so should charity workers.

I have no issue for any business who has not got charity status, does not pay below minimum wage (i.e. no volunteers) and does not take money for no service (donations) to pay any rate to employees - but if you take money for a cause, have the advantages of charity status or use unp[aid labour in any part, then everyone should be a volunteer.

An added benefit is the removal of any charity status from private schools - if teachers are paid, then the status is gone.

I think you earning over 150k a year whilst working for a charity is disgusting so would completely agree with your friends on that .

Evyerone working at a charity should do so free of charge. If this means the charity sector changes to be small local charities, all the better.

Who was it who asked about the stupidest post on the thread? I think we have a new contender.

I think you earning over 150k a year whilst working for a charity is disgusting so would completely agree with your friends on that

Oh, hang on, another entry has emerged.

Private schools are charities....

piesfortea so essentially no charities...so no cancer research, no heart research - actually a lot less clinical research. I suppose drug companies might take up the slack but then they'll chose the areas for research.

Although I'm inclined to agree with Will Self who thinks charities shouldn't exist because they fulfill a roll that should be done by the state. Just be prepared to pay more in tax and not get to choose who you give to.

Charities should not run like business, they have advantages of not paying rates, taxes and benefit from government grants. They also have increasingly explored the vulnerable - they should do the work of those who wish to donate, not aim to get people to donate.
And how do you think that work is completed if the charity does not ask for donations?

Evyerone working at a charity should do so free of charge. If this means the charity sector changes to be small local charities, all the better. After all, we expect parish councillors to work for free, so should charity workers.

So then it becomes a post code lottery.
A needy person in Manchester gets less help than somebody with the same need in Bristol because Bristols version of the charity makes more money.
How is that fair?

How do you expect those who work for free to afford to live?
Benefits?
So a further strain on society then?

I think it's all about balance, whilst we all understand people need to be paid a reasonable amount for the work that they do, it seems this is totally out of proportion with the average earner, coupled with the fact that people who don't have much still try and donate where they can, l really don't think l could take a wage that high from a charity l wouldn't sleep at night, but that's just me.

I see how you have consistently ignored my quoted comments of yours re 'people apparently not wanting to pay volunteers'

I have not once said this.
Please quote me.

Sodding hell, you really want to get to semantics.

You at 19:38

Oh crikey I really dont understand this. Am I missing something [totally owned emjois]*

Those who CHOOSE to volunteer now think much need and required staff should not get paid at all.....I wonder how long a charity would exist and provide that volunteer role if there were no staff to manage i

You are coming from a defensive point, i feel we may meet in the middle somwhere, i'm attacking your overall point that your overall narrative that the charity sector is above criticism, there is a reason why there hasn't been a mass exodus at higher level during the previous decade of tory government.

If the charity you work for didn’t pay you that amount, they’d pay someone else. This is just the green eye wrapped up in moral indignation. None of anyone else’s business. Judgemental bitches!

Not exactly, because charities get their money from the public donating
Some people donating might be MNers.
Many people donating to the charity will be earning far far less eg 10 or 20 percent of what the OP earns.
The OP could take a voluntary pay reduction if she wishes.

No Life the all who work for a charity should do so for free post wins it hands down 😂🤣

Totally agree James2002

All charities to work like small local charities with no paid staff.

We just going to ignore the next famine. Ebola outbreak or earthquake then?

All those posters saying they won't donate to big charities because of the excess spending, need to take a good look at some of the medium/smaller ones.
Imo they can be just as bad for inefficiency and wastage.

I resigned from a job with a small(ish) charity last year because I could not stomach the waste of money. It possibly wasn't illegal but I wouldn't say it was a good use of publically donated funds.

And, the accounts can be presented in such a way so as 'not to divulge everything', according to our accountant.

The senior management wages were obscene, whilst the rest of the staff were barely above minimum wage.

We were treated poorly by the CEO who thought that if the staff weren't taking part in absolutely every fundraising event, then they weren't 'team players'. 😆

I will NEVER donate to a charity again. My experience has put me off forever.

GleefulGlitch

I expect organisations who wish to have exceptions from the usual business laws of tax, minimum wages and appropriate drive for result by the capital stakeholders to operate differently.

This mean those that work for free would only do for a small period of time either for a day a week for a few weeks a year - not to be paid out of donation and subsidy by taxpayers.

Is it that hard to think that in a charity, everyone who is involved should be committed to the charity by giving, and not taking out?

Evyerone working at a charity should do so free of charge. If this means the charity sector changes to be small local charities, all the better

Yeah....bollocks to starving kids in Africa, Live Aid, Romanian orphanages, Earthquake relief, Tsunami appeals. To hell with them all. If you want to donate, there's a perfect good donkey sanctuary on the edge of town.

Evyerone working at a charity should do so free of charge

And how would that work in reality? Scientists working for major medical charities - Cancer Research being the obvious one - shouldn’t be paid? How about social workers, doctors and nurses employed by a hospice? Or would you expect Government Laws on the regulation of such professions be relaxed so that any old volunteer can deliver medical care as you lie dying? How about teachers, counsellors, allied health professionals who all work in professional roles within charitable,organisations (and no, I don’t mean private schools)? You know that some charities are providing essential services on behalf of the Government, don’t you? Why should these people not be paid anot be paid the going rate?