Wealthy charities

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about how executives should be measured on performance and should be rewarded upon that. I suppose I had better be clearer, given the previous week's scandal in Toronto, Canada.

"Sick Kids charity boss gets $2.7 M send-off" was one headline of a major newspaper in Canada. Because the head of the foundation was given an early send-off, the foundation had to buy him out of his contract, which included his $600,000 salary. This story hit all the major papers in Canada, but it seemed to die out rather quickly without much follow-up. The foundation has taken responsibility and promises greater transparency. Their next Foundation President will make $400,000 plus bonuses- still a hefty amount when compared to other heads of organizations that do more than just fundraise.

Charities are supposed to be accountable in delivering services to their clients. Fundraising should be based upon need. We need $1000,000 to support... therefore, we need to raise $1,000,000. Yet when you hear that 40% of every dollar raised goes to fundraising, you wonder whether the charity has forgotten who the client is and also whether the money raised is necessary for the clients or is it just a fundraising goal. Turning it around, if the charity only raised 60% of the goal, then that would be sufficient for paying for the client services ( which includes research). Part of the 40% should go to pay for costs incurred, but over 20% could support another charity or many other charities that are also in need. It should begin to make us skeptical of fundraising goals and of rewarding those charities that raise money just because they want to reach a goal, not because there are well-defined projects to fund.

Something to think about.

Labels: charitable excesses, scandals

posted by Brenda Northey @ 3:38 PM