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?

Psyn nope you said it perfectly

I can handle people scrutinizing my wages or the wages my company pay. Its important that charities in particular justify their costs.
I will happily explain to those that ask why admin costs are important, why paid staff are important and also what the charity would look like and who would be at risk if those costs were not paid.
Thing is I rarely get that. What I normally get is rude people who have no clue telling me I am greedy, should work for free and every penny of my wage is stolen from the needy.

Any management, accounting, fund raising, marketing, PR, legal, regulatory, policy, lobbying are all admin that should be provided by volunteers. Nothing here needs a specialist - but if specialists are available it helps.

Totally agree. In what world can a non specialist deal with legal, regulatory and financial aspects. An efficient charity has to have a decent financial person in post and decent financial people in anything over a small local operation needs to be at least a qualified management accountant and a qualified accountant costs money. Such a lot of shit on this post.

You don't need to consider employment laws if you don't have employees.

This is factually incorrect, and obviously posted by a complete buffoon with no understanding of employment law.

If you have a team of volunteers working for you, and you are instructing them on what you need them to do, in law they are effectively employees, and they are entitled to all the same protections as a paid employee. You need employer's liability insurance (that'll have to be bought out of donated money ), you'll need to monitor their hours works, make sure the have to correct insurance in place if they use their own car. and afford to them the same duties of care as a paid employee.

It's a good job charities employ people who know about this stuff, or god knows how many laws they might be breaking.

People can take charities to court, too.
A simple accident, negligence by someone inexperienced delivering a service which would normally be subject to a raft of professional protocols and accountability. Professional indemnity insurance...

Any management, accounting, fund raising, marketing, PR, legal, regulatory, policy, lobbying are all admin that should be provided by volunteers. Nothing here needs a specialist - but if specialists are available it helps.

WTAF!!!!! So all the people on that list should provide their time for free? Those are full time jobs. You can't do the accounts of a big organisation, charitable or otherwise in a few hours a week - so you are basically asking nearly 200,000 organisations to find people who will give their time for free to do those 'admin' jobs full-time? Where the fuck are they all supposed to come from? Also, do you really think that a non-specialist can do accounts, be a lawyer, understand the ins and outs of parliament and the EU, create a marketing campaign - really? If it is so easy why aren't non-specialists up and down the country doing this stuff?

I do not understand why people have this notion that because you work for an organisation that helps others you should have to do it for free or at low sums of money. Charities should be subject to good governance, they should ensure that the money that is raised goes towards their charitable objective, but they also need to ensure they are compliant with the laws of the land and that the staff who work for them, ensuring that they deliver their charitable purpose, are treated and remunerated properly too.

But @MargoLovebutter that particular poster thinks charities should only ever be small and local. Along the donkey sanctuary or PTA model.

People in famine zones overseas can sort themselves out.

I'm sure that there are lots of charities who do have professionals to help out. I know a friend who's a chartered accountant and does the books for a charity, free of charge. Takes her about 3 hours a week as it's so small scale. But for larger organisations, not even on the scale of cancer research or Barnardos, the accounts is a full time job for at least one or two people. Having 35 people doing an hour each isn't going to work.

If charities didn't pay the going rate for CEO's and upper management, then the charities wouldn't be successful.

All organisations need people to run them; those people are not going to work for free.

I think against like for like positions in the private sector, the pay is less. £150k is a stupendous amount of money as a stand alone figure, but it's stupid to think that these positions will be done for peanuts because ..' charity'.

Quite frankly, if you donate to Cancer Research UK, Oxfam, BHF etc then you are donating to a big business as well as a charity..if this is a concern,keep it local or to smaller concerns , or volunteer your time instead of donating money.

I'm always hearing/reading that it's necessary to pay top salaries to attract the 'best' people, but I've never noticed any correlation between salary and ability.

I'm not saying that some top-paid execs aren't very good at their jobs, specially in the private sector, which can be quite ruthless about weeding out underperformers, but some of the people who I've noticed being particularly poor at their jobs have been the best paid, and many of the outstandingly good people have been on quite lowly salaries.

There a few people I've encoutered who struck me as spectacularly good at their 'jobs' and all were unpaid volunteers.

GoodbyeRosie but Cancer Research UK, Oxfam aren't the like aren't big businesses are they, because they don't make a profit and they're not in it for the shareholder. Any money they make is either spent on project delivery or reinvested in the organisation to make it more efficient/resilient/able to grow. If they were making profits that people were pocketing the Charity Commission would be all over them.

Your comment is completely disingenuous.

I have thought for years that the charity sector pays too much for senior management... it is shocking and indicative of rampant capitalism that has gone unchecked for decades..
I think it is morally wrong ... when this sector first started it was about benefiting the weakest most vulnerable in society... and then along came a few savvy businessmen who saw the sums going in and kerching..... now it’s got out of hand as many of the wrong people go for these jobs ... and move around to inflate their salaries ... market forces will be cited I’m sure ... but the top 10% are damaging this country as wealth is so poorly distributed and resentment is building .... Prisons, hospitals, care homes all the same ...

@amicissimma with all due respect, how would you know? How could you be in a position where you’re assessing the performance of the top people/ CEO (whose performance is managed by the trustees/ board of directors) down to volunteers and everyone in between?

As for the donkey sanctuary, they can’t be wealthier than say, a large housing association which would have billions of £ worth of assets, or one of the colleges that make up the university of oxford who own half the county and priceless valuables and many legacies?

I too struggle to support a "charity" when a lot of the money goes on salaries and fund raising.

Sorry, but those feel like a ponzi scheme.

They do good work but I like 95% of my money to go to the cause, not 50%. For that reason we don't support national charities.

Ask yourself the question - do you love the charity/benefit delivered enough to do it for 75% of your present pay?

Op I don’t necessarily think as a CEO that £150k is so high but are there other benefits that ramp this up even higher? ... exceptional pension .... expenses. 5* hotels and travel ...its often the package that beggars belief

But you need to pay people for the "cause". Researchers. Nurses. People distributing aid in refugee camps or loading lorries advice workers. Housing experts. And associated background staff like hr people, health and safety. Accountants.

@Tiredand as I’ve said before no, I’m a qualified accountant and don’t feel a huge amount for the charities I’ve worked for/ with. But the organisation and their customers deserve the expert services of someone whose job it is to measure performance, set budgets and forecasts, undertake professional long term planning and stress testing, assist budget holders in managing their budgets and ensuring value for money.

I’d feel the same with Tesco to ensure their shareholders get value and transparency. There is no particular love for the cause.

This is usual amongst professionals like me (and I cost not far off the stated amount here, and 2 management accountants would cost approx £150k also) so what are you going to do?

Tiredand which charities would those be spending a lot of their money on salaries and fund-raising?

Why do you think National Charities spend a greater proportion of their income on staff - quite often there are economies of scale in larger charities and they spend proportionally less on staff costs than smaller charities do. It also depends on what type of charity you are talking about too. A national charity delivering respite care to the terminally ill will probably have higher staff costs than a national charity providing a helpline. Doesn't mean that either of them are better or worse at delivering their charitable objective. Your logic is flawed.

Thank you for saying that, amicissimma, that's exactly the point I was trying to make. I'd love to see a world where money was not the exchange and reward mechanism, and rather what people contribute to society, but it's never going to happen in my lifetime, if ever.

The "you get paid what you're worth" and "pay peanuts, get monkeys" comment was made to me many years ago, having been described as one of those "monkeys" in a low-paid temp job which was all I could get at the time. (Last major recession.) The MD who made the comment had no clue that at the time I had 2 degrees and a raft of vocational/professional qualifications, plus a fair amount of on-the-ground experience in the UK and abroad. I've played the game by acquiring more pieces of paper since and when I was in management positions it made me much more determined not to make such unfounded comments about my own teams.

Luckily I was in an environment where pay scales were set and decided annually and actually did depend on experience, qualifications and whether your skills were in short supply. I did however work briefly for the private sector where it seemed to me salaries were sometimes decided by licking your finger and seeing which way the wind was blowing. This was in the days before glassdoor and the like.

During my working career I have also met, encountered, and seen on screen many very senior people whose competence levels in post do not, even objectively, justify the salaries they draw. Often they have a whole host of people underneath them and around them propping them up and they have ended up as figureheads. Some of them (not all, obviously) have ended up there because they benefited from the "white [or other] privilege" or school, university and family connections that they don't even realise are privileges. And I've constantly been surprised by just what does qualify as a charity - Eton, for instance.

I do take the points made by others that charity work spans a whole raft of skills and, wherever possible, those skills and time should be compensated appropriately, but you can't get away from the fact that many charities benefit from the goodwill of so many unpaid volunteers and it isn't everyone who's in a position to give their time, skills or energy in that way. I always was uneasy about larger charities, many of which are actually corporations under the charity banner; much of what I've read on this thread confirms I'm going to stick to the local ones from now on.

I'm so glad to see that in spite of the idiots, there are also lots of very knowledgeable people on the thread.

For all those wanting their money to go only to the cause do you realise that paying professional staff is money going to the cause.
If you don't pay those staff to deliver a service to those in need then who is it that is losing out?
If staff are not paid to ensure all the legal stuff is done the charity will receive hefty fines or be shut down. Do those fines not have a direct impact on the cause?
If trainers are not paid to ensure the staff are fully competent in delivering support who loses out then? The charity or the client/cause?

I could earn much more doing what I do for a private company but I have chosen for now to earn less because I believe in the charity I work for and I love my job.
We are not all skimming off the top/stealing or greedy as one poster has stated.

Charities need the BEST people leading and working for them, because they need every single pound to generate more pounds, and rubbish people don't have the skills to do that.

That said, I worked as a supplier to Oxfam once and cancelled my direct debit. A colleague wanted to retract his London marathon. The waste, dear lord the waste...

So it depends on how good you are. If you're that good, you're worth every penny and more.

I haven’t read all rather thread yet ... but if you have to benchmark yourself by the industry norms ... I think that says it all!
There are many many people putting in 7 days a week doing roles within your sector and others that give their all and make a real tangible difference to people’s lives ... The attitude that I am worth every penny and I have turned it around ..what ! Single handily or was it a team effort... this is where I lose sympathy for your argument/ justifications... are you only someone who will give so much if you can take what you see as your real worth .. or would you have done as equally well on say £50k less? Do your team earn as well out of the charity... or have you a low paid workforce at the coal face ? Most ‘successful CEO’s. Manage to look so good because they make staff cuts at the lower end and pile more work onto the lowest paid ... many make people fearful of their job security as a reason to pay low wages and suppress complaints about conditions in their industry ... which type of CEO are you?

Not about wages but just large Charities I work in financial services we advise one of the UKs most well known big charities one which gets a fair amount of bad press. We invest tens of millions of ££s for them. They are not spending this money on their cause, they also have tens of millions in their pension fund. Sickens me I won’t be donating to them

IT is administration and is not very skilled as a role. In general I would expect a charity to expect people to use their own PC's and free on-line services. No need to pay anything for IT.

OK, now i know you're on a wind up. Try maintaining a database without being reasonably skilled at IT.

Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary is quite eye-opening. It functions internationally www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/who-we-are/annual-review. Accounts for 2017 are here. They had an income of £37.6M in 2017 alone. OK they're not the biggest charity ever, but don't dismiss them as some tinpot little venture. They really aren't.

I am a volunteer and a trustee with a small charitable organisation. We employ three very qualified and experienced people to run the organisation on a day to day basis. That means that we remain funded (one person is responsible for researching and applying for grants etc) and that our clients can call us at any time in office hours and get someone they know, who knows their case and their story, , understands the legal and personal ramifications of it and can offer the right sort of support or point them to other kinds of help. That consistency is vital for our clients and it would be impossible for us to operate without our employees. Of course we also have to rent the office space, buy computers and office materials and everything else needed to carry out the work we do for those who need us.

I don't know how they put up with us volunteers and trustees to be honest. We're almost all retired professionals who have other things in our lives. They've been trying to get the trustees together to make some big decision on stuff they've been working really hard on. But the chair of trustees is always on holiday, another has to spend a lot of time out of the area to care for her elderly mother, and we almost all have other commitments. If you see the list on the office whiteboard re: individual volunteers' availability, you'd laugh or cry. I think nearly a third of them are away or otherwise unavailable this week.

There's some stunning ignorance on this thread, as well as some really nasty negativity and cynicism.

That poster has no clue about GDPR either Belenus

Was it last year where a man was fined £20,000 for sending clients info to his home PC so he could work from home?