To think most charities are just ego projects for their leadership?

[CraftyAmberReader]

So many charities seem more about flashy CEOs, PR campaigns and self-promotion than the actual cause. AIBU to think they’re often vanity projects at the top?

One of my aunts set up a charity to help local people when she was nearing retirement age.

It helped so many people and others outside the group she was originally helping asked her to open it up to more people so she did.

She worked harder at that charity than she had in her working life, raising money, arranging everything and doing the worst bits of the work taking nothing out for herself.
No wages at all.

Over the years it was open, it helped thousands of people and she was working at it until she got sick then died shortly after.

It was supposed to be continued by her children, but they just played at it a bit and let it die.

No ego was involved, just compassion.
If the charity got any publicity, my aunts only interest was to advertise that the help was available for those who needed it, and to hope people would want to volunteer or help out some other way.

So yes, YABU to think that most charities are ego projects.
Most charities are run by people who really believe it's their duty to try to make some bit of the world a slightly better place.

John Lewis’s chair, Jason Tarry, is to be paid more than £1.3m this year – about a fifth more than his predecessor, Sharon White – as he takes a more hands-on role.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/06/john-lewiss-chair-jason-tarry-to-earn-more-than-13m-this-year

Granted, JL is way bigger than Oxfam, but their CEO’s role and responsibilities are unlikely to be significantly more complex than those of the CEO of Oxfam.

I think people just have the very simple mindset that “charity should be free” and think that everyone involved in one should be a volunteer. No thoughts about managing the volunteers, managing the income, managing the services or how that would all work every day.

Charities are simply businesses that don’t funnel any profits to shareholders, so they need to be run like a responsible business, which involves paying their staff for the work they do and buying the things they need, like computers.

Exactly. And JL is not exactly saving any lives!

I’ve worked charity sector all my life, can only think of one example similar to what you describe. I have come across the most wonderful and genuine people who really care. Some of the smaller local charities do amazing work that changes peoples lives!

You can see the big charities and their CEOs' salaries here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEO_compensation_among_charities_in_the_United_Kingdom

The one that sticks out is Nuffield Health which many of us wouldn't comsider a charity, but a private health / gym commercial company. Also people working in charity don't get profit share etc.

'Go in pockets'. I hate that phrase. Do you mean that the staff get paid? Well yes, of course they do! Why wouldn't they be paid to work? But they get paid a proportionate amount. Surely you understand the correlation between good people and marketing with increased revenues?

I wonder if people know about the scrutiny charities get. Money doesn't go 'into pockets' without good reason, (i.e getting paid a wage) as the charities commission would be all over them.

I just can't get my head around people who are so twisted that they feel it necessary to put the boot into a charity.

Absolutely right. It would be impossible to run a large charity on volunteers alone. For a start, most of the paid roles in charities are full-time, or close to full-time (with some exceptions - the Deputy Manager at the shop I volunteer at is paid and works 24 hours a week) and nobody would volunteer to work for free for 30-35 hours a week, especially with the higher level of skills and responsibilities that are often needed for these roles.

Charity volunteers are mostly people who take on simple, easy tasks and do it for a few hours per week. I don't think you'd find anyone who was willing to take on unpaid work for six or seven hours per day, five days a week.

Charities need to pay staff with greater responsibilities and yes, sometimes those salaries should be six figure ones, because you wouldn't recruit suitable applicants otherwise. To expect all charities to run on volunteers alone or pay peanuts to all their employees is impractical. The charities would falter and collapse.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that some charities underpay the staff at the lower end of the spectrum. (I'm thinking of shop managers.) I volunteer in an Oxfam bookshop in a well-to-do city and the manager probably doesn't earn much more than 26k per year. And it used to be lower than that.

Well, it's a different spin on "all charity shop volunteers are grumpy old harridans who are stealing all the good stuff"

@GenieGenealogy

Some people actually have a problem with charity shop staff BUYING stuff from the shop they work at!

Usual goady thread from someone who knows nothing about the sector
Provide examples of these high earning ego ridden CEOs
Ive worked for a few charities over the years including ones supporting people with cancer, older people who have no family, survivors of sexual abuse and currently people with disabilities and long term health condition - the thing they all have in common is providing free services to people who fall between the gaps in statutory provision
Salaries are low and there is little job security as funding is hard to find and donations falling
I had to ask all my team to take a voluntary cut in hours recently and as CEO I have had to take a second job as I’ve cut my own paid hours (I still do a lot of unpaid hours as do most of us)

I’m a charity trustee and that’s not the case at our lovely charity, run by a hardworking and humble guy and with a range of trustees that is appropriately diverse. Making a difference quietly in our local community. It makes me so happy to be involved plus I get to use my skills in a not for profit space which is personally and professionally rewarding.

Someone has already posted the CEO salaries at the top charities and very very few are over 150k. Let alone 300k.
Tell me about this magical charity where the salaries are so high.

I know someone who is the head of a massive, well-known charity. It is absolutely not ego-driven. He is a committed but quiet Christian who sees it as a duty to help others. (The charity is not a Christian one, there is no missionary work, and his faith doesn't seem to affect who gets funding for projects as far as I can see.)

I know people who run tiny charities doing work with children - they both began them as a response to grief, having lost children. It's therapy of sorts for sure, but not ego-based.

YABVVU

I think your statement is too generalizing OP. There are so many differernt kinds of charities. I'm on the board for a tiny charity, with a tiny mandate, which we fulfil well, it's not an eco trip for anyone, it's a lot of work that most people have no idea is going on, and it's run by some of the least egotistical people I know.

I do think when you get up to the really big charities, you have a totally differernt story. Oxfam, Amnesty International, Stonewall. Certain kinds of people make running these things a career, and switch between them all. For a while you are CEO of Amnesty International, now you change to Oxfam, now you go back to some smaller but upcoming charity. I suspect a lot of these ultimately have some very dodgy money goings on, particularly related to lobbying. Some, like AA, have completely undermined their mission over the years, it seems about expanding their mandate more and more, keeping the money rolling in. And I do think for some they see it as a kind of bragging point that they are leaders of these organisations. Or maybe better to say, an excuse to be self-righteous while they tell others what to do.

But those are a minority of charities.

Of the small ones I'm sure you could find some ego projects. I know of two, one an animal sanctuary, the other relating to international adoption.

As someone who has worked in the charity sector for 10+ years - earning much less than my friends in the private sector, with significantly fewer benefits (mat leave, pension contributions etc) but crippling responsibility - the results of this AIBU are so depressing.

The charity sector is on its knees at the moment. Financially things are harder than ever before, the stress is higher than ever, and so many people are quitting for other careers. When you post things like this it can literally make charity workers just want to throw in the towel. And then where would we be?

I know a few people who say they don't give to charity because the money doesn't go to the cause, it goes on wages etc. I think it's just an excuse to make themselves feel better about not being a charitable person. Of course people need to be paid to do their job (ultimately helping the cause) and they need ad campaigns to get more money. There are plenty of tiny local charities, animal rescues, one-man bands, and similar things that people could support if they really did care. Or they could give time or things instead of money (which I prefer to do as it requires more effort from me).

I just find some people's views on charity in general really odd. Friends asked what I was doing after we finished lunch, I said I was buying items for a collection for people in Ukraine (at the start of the war) as I knew a local man with connections. The first reaction from a friend - "What about Syria?? No one cared about the Syrian war!" This lady had not done anything to support the people in the Syrian war or any other war...

This is so true. Whether consciously or subconsciously people use criticism of charities and 'what about other causes' as excuses to justify doing nothing and giving nothing themselves.

@Lifelifelife21

Perhaps that is indeed part of the reason for some, but if so, it's pretty pointless, because giving/doing nothing isn't something that needs to be justified. There's no legal or moral obligation to give time or money to charity, and it's perfectly fine not to do so. It doesn't make someone a bad person. Perhaps some people feel feel an internal sense of shame, which leads them to be overly critical of charities, but if so, their shame is misplaced.

I do volunteer for a charity shop myself, but I don't do so for any altruistic reasons at all. I'm not interested in the actual work the charity does. I volunteer solely for my own pleasure - the shop is a bookshop, I'm an avid reader, and I enjoy the work. The fact that it's a charity is irrelevant to me.

yes, just another version of the charity bashing threads that appear on a regular basis.

@OP, what if they are? so long as their beneficiaries are benefitting from it and making lives better, it doesn't matter. What altruistic charitable work do you do?

I have worked for charities for most of my career and unfortunately I have become very cynical about them as a result.

I have worked for some decent charities that did some important work on the frontline but I have also come worked for several charities that were badly run, mostly vanity projects with endless internal politics and bullying where grants/donations were wasted on fancy events and marketing campaigns. Not to mention that several had dodgy fundraising practices and exaggerated their impact and the number of people supported and exploited the good will of volunteers.

Now I always advise people who want to donate to charity to do their research first and preferably support a smaller, local charity where they can see the impact on the ground. Not the big ones with headquarters in London who often treat their frontline staff appallingly, but reward senior management handsomely, and are pretty much businesses these days with a concerning lack of ethics.

@saraclara · Yesterday 14:34
CEOs of charities could earn vastly more in the corporate world.

That is not correct. I have worked under so many incompetent CEOs, directors and trustees in my 25 years working in the sector that would not last a day if they had to work in the private sector. In fact I think that at senior level charities are a refuge for people who are big on ego and self-righteousness but low on skills and efficiency...

I think that's something people's opinions would differ on.

I feel strongly that if you have more time / money than you need to be comfortably well-off then you should give something back. Especially once you get to the very, very wealthy. Others may disagree but I think the majority of people feel that way deep down hence @Sera1989 's original comment of: "it's just an excuse to make themselves feel better about not being a charitable person."

They would much rather say (and believe) "I choose not to give money to charity because EVERY charity is undeserving." compared to "I choose not to give because I want to keep it for myself and spend on other things."

That's obviously very different to not having any spare money or time to give.

I suppose it is a matter of subjective opinion. I suppose I just struggle to relate to that kind of thinking, that there's some sort of obligation of an ethical kind to give time or money.

I'll occasionally make some one-off donations to a charity, but it's not something I do out of habit, or on any kind of regular basis. And like I said, even though I do some voluntary work in a charity shop, I'm not motivated by the cause at all. I do it purely for pleasure. I take no shame in saying that if I choose not to give money it's because I'd rather spend it on pleasurable items/experiences for myself.