ICANN is a non-profit whom CEO gets ~1M/year. Executives earn a bonus of more than 50% of their base salaries if specific goals are reached, such as adding a new gTLD.
Source: http://www.thedomains.com/2010/02/11/nonprofit-icann-release...
I really hope this top-level domain thing isn't going anywhere.
I don't think this is a relevant metric at all for judging a non-profit's goals or performance. There is a certain point where the organization has become so big or important that any person whom the stakeholders can trust to run it will command a high salary.
My thoughts next turn to "hypocrisy". These are supposedly charity endeavors. But much of their activity -- fundraising activity, at least -- is just more status seeking and building and fraternizing.
There, for me, lies the heart of the matter. When in the minds and/or actions of the top level participants, charity work is anything but.
(I'm "on the outside" looking in, and perhaps I'm too cynical. I want to believe that people have more depth than this, and some individual acquaintances who travel in those circles sure seem to. But it makes me wonder.)
No wonder they are not more effective.
I'm not entirely comfortable with my comment, but I'll make it for the sake of the point about "like attracts like".
Let's come up for air here and ask the simple question: do we believe we have better domain policy because we pay some guy at ICANN a 7-figure annual comp package?
I don't believe that. Do you?
Due to its ARPANET origins, the Internet namespace was technically property of the United States. Obviously that situation had to change, or the other nearly 200 nations on the planet would have difficulty accepting the Internet as the true global network.
The ICANN is necessarily a compromise between the interests of powerful nations. It's not reasonable to assume that it could be run completely differently from all the other global intergovernmental organizations. Most politicians don't consider Internet policy to be all that special compared to trade, foreign aid, patents and everything else that needs to be similarly balanced and negotiated. Hence, the head of the ICANN is someone who's acceptable to governments foremost.
By contrast, Ophelia Dahl of the 4-star rated Partners in Health makes $86,000.
PIH is a smaller organization than the Red Cross, but there are people who could argue that PIH is also more impactful. It's also the case that part of the reason the Red Cross is so much larger is that it's a key mission of the Red Cross to be larger. It's not unlikely that charities with highly-compensated CEOs share that trait. You pay a CEO a lot of money because their market value is high. What makes a manager-type CEO's market value high? Sales and financing skill.
It's absolutely reasonable to point out and question the salary of a nonprofit's CEO.
That's still tens of thousands of dollars. Can you point to a CEO of a non-profit making less than $10k? Less than $1k?
"The shelter depends entirely on the generosity of others to sustain our efforts. There are no paid personnel and all monies/donations are used to care for our cats. KRA is a non-profit 501 (C3) corporation and donations are tax-deductible."
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm
Equating 86K a year to penniless is a statement very very far removed from reality.
I'm sure there are many instances where the chief executive of a charity does not take a salary or personally contributes more to the charity than their salary.
http://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a-...