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?

Oh do make up your mind, OP. One minute you’re working every second God sends, the next you took a £250k pay cut to spend more time with your children. It can’t be both.

My life is also consumed by my job and the pressure can be extreme. I earn £32k pa as a teacher with 10 years experience.

Great, so you agree that in the right circumstances, it's ok to pay the head of a charity a huge salary. That's all we're discussing here. No one would agree that useless people should be paid a large salary. In any job. But the right person doing a great job, should be.
But I think there's probably differences in what people consider doing a good job to be.

I don't consider any charity CEO raking it in themselves to be doing a good job if:
They are exploiting zero hours contracts on their front line workers
They pay a wage the absolute minimum
They push people to do jobs they've applied for voluntarily to 'gain experience' (It's no different to unpaid internships in London. If the job needs doing then pay someone to do it properly)
They expect professionals in their areas to work 'for experience' or for knock down rates because 'it's a charity'.
They don't offer a decent wage, sick pay, maternity pay, pension to their lowest tier workers

Doing the above is as wrong as it is for the private sector and doing it in the name of 'charity' because you can make soem headline figures look nice doesn't make it ethical.

It's not wrong to pay someone for their job, but I question any organisation that justices paying the top dogs hundreds of thousands or millions whilst denying the basics to those at the bottom.

I’d respect the big charity CEOs a helluva lot more if they admitted it’s a business. At least be completely transparent and then let people decide where they wish to donate their money and time.

We took a massive financial hit with me taking up this role.
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Diddums. Must be sooooo hard 'only' earning over £150k a year!

It's rude of her to talk about it on a group, and I am willing to bet she knew something about your position before she piped up!

But I'm afraid I agree with many others - yes, it's a cringey situation and I couldn't defend it to myself for ever.

I didn’t disclose my salary to them, I just told them I was a CEO of x Charity and defended the position that those earning £150k+ deserve to be earning that. I went on to explain the responsibilities. You assume I told them. I did not. My salary is published. As are many. And @Alsohuman my husband gave up his job to be able to take my children to do school drops off and pick ups so that they wouldn’t feel parentless. Please RTFT

saraclara couldn’t agree more.

You are getting a rough time on here but like I said YANBU. You have to pay for talent.

I also think on a basic level your friends were rude.
One of my friends husbands is a fancy EA. He makes mega bucks and by his own admission does sweet FA for it. I wouldn’t ever berate him and tell him he doesn’t deserve his salary because
A. I’m his friend
B. It’s bloody rude

You said he went freelance. I have RTFT, thank you.

I try to only give to charities that give 100 percent of the money raised to the cause it was raised for. I volunteer for a charity that does this.

If 100% of donations goes to the cause, that means no one gets paid. Thus it must be a very small charity, helping a small number of people, locally.

Nothing wrong with that, but we need large charities to deal with large scale problems and projects.

I have no issue with skilled people being properly recompensed for their work, and 150k as CEO is on the low side for the level of responsibility. I do however, have issue with the way modern charities are run, full stop, the way they try and solicit donations and the fact it's become a competitive industry, with all the machinations that involves.

I think large charities are politicised organisations with non-partisan agendas, they are transparent financially under the charities commision, but ideologically they are unfettered and allowed to operate with scant scrutiny, and in the case of OXFAM, The Red Cross, Kids' Company and latterly the NSPCC, we're seeing that much of the sector is a haven for people with questionable morals to act with impunity.

I don't agree with huge CEO salaries and no I do not think £150k is a reasonable salary for a CEO for a charity, large or otherwise and this is why I do not donate to large national/international charities. If they are so free and easy with donations they can do it with someone else's money. I do not suppose someone on minimum wage donating a tenner wants anything more than a small percentage to go towards salaries. I would agree with your friends

It is the PM salary that is out of kilter with the going rate really. It's a bit silly to use it as a comparison. It is artificially low.

I dont think any human being is worth 100 times or more than what people on minimum wage are worth.

That said I work for a medium/small charity and I dont think anyone is overpaid by as much as a penny when benchmarked against people in similar private sector jobs. A lot of our core work is what our staff are doing rather than just passing it on to beneficiaries anyway.

gleefulglitch
You sound woefully underpaid for your taxing role. Do you really think people like the OP should earn nearly 8x more than you working in the same sector?

I am the CEO of an organisation that is a Regd Charity and is grant funded.

I am ultimately responsible for the ethical use of between £1.3m and £8m in any given year. We have a significant safeguarding responsibility which we take seriously and discharge well. I am answerable for the compliance with huge amounts of red tape, Financially, legally etc. I am responsible for policy development and implementation.

Every penny that comes from the taxpayer (in grants), from Trust and Foundations or individuals has to work towards our impact and honour the donor’s commitment.

With 25 years experience and numerous qualifications I get paid under £50k. No perks whatsoever, pension contributions the legal minimum and no company contributions at all until it was law. I work evenings, weekends, with no overtime payments allowed.

The right Charity for the right thing. There are brilliant small charities but they cannot always provide long term intervention when needed. Or specialist services which need legal or international experience. Are their staff being trained?

I would be paid a lot more in the private sector.

ILikeyourHairyHands
Very well put.

”I didn’t disclose my salary to them, I just told them I was a CEO of x Charity and defended the position that those earning £150k+ deserve to be earning that. I went on to explain the responsibilities. You assume I told them. I did not. My salary is published.”

Nobody assumed anything. This is what you said:

”I defended my position but most of my friends agreed I earned too much since I worked for a charity. “

Are you saying that one of them went off and googled your published salary to find out what you earn?

Sorry, OP, I’m sure you are committed and do a great job but there is no way any charity can possibly justify paying an employee £150k+. Such excessive executive salaries are one of the main reasons I have stopped donating to large corporate charities. I now donate only to small local charities run by volunteers.

I worked for a large charity. I earned just over what is about average in the city.

You aren’t going to cure cancer if you don’t pay your scientists enough to stop them finding another job.

I think it's fine for you to earn £150K as long as you're bringing £150K's worth of benefit to the charity. Given that you have been offered a role at £400K, I would be happy to assume that is the case.

If the charity earns more due to being led by someone passionate and competent, where's the problem?

Oh do make up your mind, OP. One minute you’re working every second God sends, the next you took a £250k pay cut to spend more time with your children. It can’t be both.

That wasn't what the OP said.

We have a significant safeguarding responsibility which we take seriously and discharge well

Can scratch NSPCC off the list of possible contenders then...

Sorry, couldn’t resist. As you were. 😳

We’ve stopped giving to charity. Most of them actually have far too much money and seem to spend their time investing it rather than spending it on ongoing projects.
Get a hold of one of the big charities balance sheets and have a look - mind boggling.

Thank you Smileyaxolotl1

My CEO is paid more than the OP.
I do not begrudge them it tbh.

Their job is difficult in other ways to mine and the responsibility they have not only to the staff but the the 1000s we support deserves the salary.

I will only be able to afford to stay in this job for a few more years then i will need something which pays much better and that is a shame as I love it.

Tbf I worked for a charity and the salaries are high considering they're meant to be charities.....if you want a good salary work for a charity. It's guaranteed.

@Pissedoffandbored - massive financial hit- seriously!! Was on your side til then !!! CEO have a place, have massive responsibility but get into the real world