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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Gail McGovern, the CEO of the American Red Cross, makes $995,000. Charity Navigator gives the Red Cross 3 of 4 stars.

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.

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It's reasonable and it tells you something about the organization's values, but it only goes so far. Overhead costs are a poor way to judge a charity's effectiveness. More:

http://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a-...

It does not ring true to me that looking at overhead costs are the "worst" way to pick a charity. Is there more to the picture? Sure. Is the Red Cross as impactful as PIH dollar for dollar? I doubt it. And if you look at the numbers and engage critical thinking, instead of just setting an arbitrary "overhead" threshold, you can spot things like growth for growth's sake, or fundraising for fundraising's sake.

> By contrast, Ophelia Dahl of the 4-star rated Partners in Health makes $86,000.

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?

http://kittyrescueandadoption.org/how_to_help.html

"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."

$86k in many places (say NYC or SFBay) is (just below) a living wage. Must all do-gooders be penniless?

SFBay average is about 76K:

http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm

Equating 86K a year to penniless is a statement very very far removed from reality.

My point's just: there are CEOs of highly effective well regarded charities who are not taking 7 figure salaries. It is not true that charities basically have to shell out 7 figures because that's what people who can manage charities cost.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

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.

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