My salary is €93,338 says Irish charity boss...do you think this is too much?

jetsonx

I was shocked to read this on the website of a well known Irish charity.


My salary is €93,338 and all staff have had a pay and increment freeze since 2008. We have also reduced salaries and payscales to manage our payroll costs. We do not, nor can we afford to, pay public service payscales and our pay levels are less than similar roles in the Public service. There are also no fees paid to our voluntary board members.


What do you think - it is too much for a "charity" boss?


http://www.dubsimon.ie/AboutUs/OurFinances.aspx

Nonoperational

Nope not really. Depends on his performance.

smash

Not a huge amount for a CEO to be honest.

Meathlass

No, seems fine. Simon is a very large organization with lots of stakeholders. Do you expect someone to run it for free?

Idraulici

Very small amount for a CEO. No complaints from me.

yop

Not for a CEO, when you consider TD's are on a lot more than that for what they do then its small money. In the private sector it would be twice or three times that at least.

Sheep Lover

Everyone who works for a charity should live off a meagre existence of rooting in bins for food and sucking moss off rocks for sustenance, to set an example to the rest of us.

KeithTS

No way.
You get what you pay for. In order for a charity to turn over anything worth while so they can do some good it must be run like a business and you need proper management for that.

If the charity generates more money which is used appropriately to fund projects or whatever with that person at the helm then they deserve a good salary.

Why do people often think charities or not for profit organisation should be run by people wearing sackcloth and ashes and nearly apologising for getting paid.

Riverireland

Not much for a CEO, don't know anything about the man but if he is any good he could get at least twice that or more. Hopefully he is good and is doing it for altruistic reasons.

Custardpi

Assuming they're being transparent & not "forgetting" to mention lots of sneaky "top-ups", inflated expenses etc then that actually sounds fair enough for an organisation of that size. Obviously his performance is a key factor. You do need relatively high salaries to attract the right people at that level. That said, some studies I've read claim that this is true only up to a certain level so that increasing a person's salary beyond that is only going to be marginally effective at improving performance. It's not always easy to pinpoint exactly what that level is for a given organisation/industry but the Simon Community would appear to be at least trying to approach the optimum salary for this position.

Francie Barrett

I just checked, 151 people are employed by the Simon group. €93k a year to be the CEO of that size of an organisation is actually not a lot.

Duggy747

That's actually pretty reasonable.

But it's more than what I earn so I'm defaulting to "Bah! Bastard!!"

Generic Dreadhead

jetsonx wrote: »

I was shocked to read this on the website of a well known Irish charity.
My salary is €93,338

Seems like it's just you

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

When I was still working I got more than that without, I'd imagine, anything like the responsibility. My pension is not very mush less than that. So is it too much? Not if he his doing his job properly.

seamus

Sheep Lover wrote: »

Everyone who works for a charity should live off a meagre existence of rooting in bins for food and sucking moss off rocks for sustenance, to set an example to the rest of us.

Funnily enough, you'd be surprised at the amount of people who seem to think that.

It can be very frustrating for charity staff; when the company wants to cut costs the first thing they do is guilt the staff into taking paycuts because, you know, charity, when these people are in general very poorly paid already.

The second thing they then do is lean more heavily on volunteer work, putting out calls for more volunteers. While volunteers are crucial to many charities, what many well-meaning volunteers don't realise is that the extra free time they're providing for free ends up cutting into a paid person's hours and ultimately ends up with the loss of jobs because the charity is getting more work done for free.

I think most people who work for a charity do so on the understanding that they will never be well paid, but very often they end up getting treated like scroungers taking food out of the mouths of dying babies.

This thread is a perfect example; the guy is performing a specific valuable kind of work which requires specific experience and skills, for about 30% of the going market rate, and the OP is still questioning whether he should be paid less.

The Backwards Man

Doesn't bother me.

But then again I wouldn't give any money to a 'charity' that has a CEO as I don't consider them charities.

cloud493

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Doesn't bother me.

But then again I wouldn't give any money to a 'charity' that has a CEO as I don't consider them charities.

What is it then?

The Backwards Man

cloud493 wrote: »

What is it then?

Fund management.

anncoates

A lot of charities are big companies that require an experienced CEO which is going usually going to be market led in terms of wages.

People just see charity and assume you get experienced executives rolling up to work for free.

ancapailldorcha

seamus wrote: »

Funnily enough, you'd be surprised at the amount of people who seem to think that.

It can be very frustrating for charity staff; when the company wants to cut costs the first thing they do is guilt the staff into taking paycuts because, you know, charity, when these people are in general very poorly paid already.

The second thing they then do is lean more heavily on volunteer work, putting out calls for more volunteers. While volunteers are crucial to many charities, what many well-meaning volunteers don't realise is that the extra free time they're providing for free ends up cutting into a paid person's hours and ultimately ends up with the loss of jobs because the charity is getting more work done for free.

I think most people who work for a charity do so on the understanding that they will never be well paid, but very often they end up getting treated like scroungers taking food out of the mouths of dying babies.

This thread is a perfect example; the guy is performing a specific valuable kind of work which requires specific experience and skills, for about 30% of the going market rate, and the OP is still questioning whether he should be paid less.

I'm not saying you're wrong but I used to be friendly with a fair few people working at Oxfam and they were regularly treated to well paid placements abroad, lavish expense accounts, training courses and so on... I'd say you're right for a lot of charities but the huge multinationals would evoke little if any sympathy from me.

The figure in the OP does seem a bit high but not high enough to criticise the charity. I'm not sure what the average salary for a CEO is in Ireland but that doesn't seem too bad if they want to attract someone half decent.

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Fund management.

There is a lot of logistics and planning involved. Tetanus vaccines for example which might be donated by a Pharma firm still require shipping, administration, tracking and so on so a lot of the bigger charities need a lot of people over the world to coordinate that.

darkpagandeath

Not a huge amount, But we do have a track record in this country of NDA's and alike. Top ups, expenses and all that. If this is the true number fair enough.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

The success of the charity is down to the hard work of the staff. They should be paid well as the work they are doing is considered "good" and benificial to others.

93K looks like a savage amount of money, I know I would love to make that much, but I don't think people realise the responsibility involved in these roles. It's not a fantastic wage for a CEO.

People just see the figure and become annoyed. The tax this man pays a year is quite a lot. I think the take home pay is about 55K. In comparison, somebody on 50K will take home about 34K. Massive tax gap there.

Geuze

yop wrote: »

Not for a CEO, when you consider TD's are on a lot more than that for what they do then its small money. In the private sector it would be twice or three times that at least.

TDS wages is about 87k.

daveyeh

I'd rather give money to the actual people in need than see a large percentage of it disappear into the cost of running a business.

CEO wage rates put me off donating.

Grayson

there was a charity boss in the papers last year.people were saying he was paid too much. Turns out though that since he took over the charity has increased it's income by a factor of three.

If the guy can raise that much more money, he's worth every penny the charity paid him.

fastrac

Charities got used to easy money during the boom and are now finding it very hard to make the adjustment to the reality of 2014.Look at the boards of the Charities that dominate in Ireland and you will find the same names over and over. Another Irish Golden Circle.

One eyed Jack

Grayson wrote: »

there was a charity boss in the papers last year.people were saying he was paid too much. Turns out thou that since he took over the charity has increased it's income by a factor of three.

If the guy can raise that much more money, he's worth every penny the charity paid him.

Nail on the head. I had a quick look at their 2012 financials there from the link, and for someone who's income hasn't increased since 2008, he still managed to oversee income for the charity from various sources that amounted to over TEN times his salary!

There are CEOs in Fortune 500 companies wouldn't manage that sort of return for their salaries!

Don Kedick

People aren't shocked by that number because they know of others receiving far more. Some people are way overpaid.

Irishcrx

It'll keep him out of dumpster diving anyway, the rest of us though...Keep your diving boards..

Irishcrx

I work in a building with a well known 'Charity' , although it's one of the larger and well known one's it's a profit making organisation at source. Their CEO ended up in the paper last year over his salary and a couple of other thing's that were knocking about.

A few weeks before he had bought a new Mercedes and parks it in the building, once the story hit the newspapers he turned up the next day in a 99 banger that he must have borrowed from his maid at home or quickly bought on done deal for €200 the evening before. I ran into him in the car park that morning , he looks at me...I look at him , then the car...I know...He knows , he looks at the ground and walks off...

Seriously like, do you expect the fool people with that trick into thinking your poor or something??

micosoft

fastrac wrote: »

Charities got used to easy money during the boom and are now finding it very hard to make the adjustment to the reality of 2014.Look at the boards of the Charities that dominate in Ireland and you will find the same names over and over. Another Irish Golden Circle.

Or more likely, Ireland is a small country with a limited number of talented people able to contribute at board level. FYI I don't know of a single charitable board that pays board members - they freely give of their time. Most are senior executives with experiance in Audit, HR, Finance, Change etc who make a huge contribution to the operations of these charities. What skills would you bring to a charitable board?

jetsonx

But if these high-salaried folks are so good - how come you rarely find a Irish charity CEO from a purely private-sector
background? They always seem to emanate from a quango, another government-sponsored charity or as another posted has mentioned
the "charity golden circle". You never hear of an Irish charity CEO who used to work for a company like Vodafone or Tesco?

corner of hells

jetsonx wrote: »

But if these high-salaried folks are so good - how come you rarely find a Irish charity CEO from a purely private-sector
background? They always seem to emanate from a quango, another government-sponsored charity or as another posted has mentioned
the "charity golden circle". You never hear of an Irish charity CEO who used to work for a company like Vodafone or Tesco?

I think the top earning charities in Ireland are generally hospitals fundraising groups , I know one of the CEOs from one of them myself ,hes related to me and was recruited from the dole queue originally after being made redundant from Guinnes kindof similar to Vodafone or Tesco.

suicide_circus

I understand that CEOs of large organisations command large salaries but I cant help being put off donating cash from my pitiful wages when the majority of my contribution won't be seen by the end user, those in need, and the majority will go on staff salaries, marketing etc. Make no mistake, charities and NGOs are an industry employing thousands upon thousands of people, the fact that some of their profits go to charitable causes is almost secondary.

Say you were a nurse working for a charity that provided services to those that sleep out should he/she be paid less or more that a nurse working for someone doing cosmetic surgery. How do you decide what is worthy.

A lot of large charities are really not for profit organisations, charity is a very old fashioned idea.

Hold the Cheez Whiz

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Doesn't bother me.

But then again I wouldn't give any money to a 'charity' that has a CEO as I don't consider them charities.

Someone has to run the organization. Do you object to the title, or the fact that there is a front(wo)man?

suicide_circus wrote: »

I understand that CEOs of large organisations command large salaries but I cant help being put off donating cash from my pitiful wages when the majority of my contribution won't be seen by the end user, those in need, and the majority will go on staff salaries, marketing etc. Make no mistake, charities and NGOs are an industry employing thousands upon thousands of people, the fact that some of their profits go to charitable causes is almost secondary.

You can look up data on that though. Any organization is going to have some kind of administrative overhead, but spending 10-15% of revenues on administration isn't unreasonable.

Hold the Cheez Whiz

I wonder how much the reaction to charity salaries in Ireland is also down to the fact that traditionally, many charity presidents weren't paid because they were priests or nuns? This has become an issue in a lot of Catholic social institutions (schools and hospitals in particular) in the U.S. - they never had to pay the key staff in the past, and now that the numbers of priests and nuns are shrinking, they have to increasingly rely on paid staff, and the level of pay is an issue.

Grayson

jetsonx wrote: »

But if these high-salaried folks are so good - how come you rarely find a Irish charity CEO from a purely private-sector
background? They always seem to emanate from a quango, another government-sponsored charity or as another posted has mentioned
the "charity golden circle". You never hear of an Irish charity CEO who used to work for a company like Vodafone or Tesco?

Charities are actually closer in organisational structure to a public sector service rather than a private sector company.

PizzamanIRL

People see the word 'charity' and think that anybody working for it should earn hardly anything. At the end of the day it's still a business and the people at the top of the ladder will earn the most of course.

corner of hells

mariaalice wrote: »

Say you were a nurse working for a charity that provided services to those that sleep out should he/she be paid less or more that a nurse working for someone doing cosmetic surgery. How do you decide what is worthy.

A lot of large charities are really not for profit organisations, charity is a very old fashioned idea.

A lot of charities that employ nurses or other medical professionals employ those with particular skills or experience often around addiction , mental health with specifor leaning towards low threshold.
The charity I work for pays all its frontline staff exactly the same irregardless your education.

corner of hells

corner of hells wrote: »

A lot of charities that employ nurses or other medical professionals employ those with particular skills or experience often around addiction , mental health with specifor leaning towards low threshold.
The charity I work for pays all its frontline staff exactly the same irregardless your education.

My point is more around the ideas of what is worthy and the metal image people have of charities. Why are some services provided by charities, they should be provided by not for profit organisation through a services level agreement with the various government department, fundraising for the organisation should be done through a foundation set up to support the organisation.

bur

Yes, charities shouldn't be run as businesses. It's why there are so many bad ones.

corner of hells

mariaalice wrote: »

My point is more around the ideas of what is worthy and the metal image people have of charities. Why are some services provided by charities, they should be provided by not for profit organisation through a services level agreement with the various government department, fundraising for the organisation should be done through a foundation set up to support the organisation.

Ive only ever worked in homelessness / drug services / hostels , what you are saying does actually happen , needle exchanges are supplied by HSE , some hostels are DCC hostels either run by charities or by local authorities themselves etc.
There is a lot of of interagency work done by charities and local.authorities.

Soft Falling Rain

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Doesn't bother me.

But then again I wouldn't give any money to a 'charity' that has a CEO as I don't consider them charities.

In 2011 it was estimated that it roughly took €10m a year to keep just Dublin Simon running. Half of that was government funded, other half had to be fundraised.

Given that the government has increasingly dealt cuts to Homeless services over the years, there's an even bigger emphasis on fundraising.

Organising such demands very much requires a CEO, and a proper management structure in order to ensure funds are put to the maximum use.

Meathlass

mariaalice wrote: »

My point is more around the ideas of what is worthy and the metal image people have of charities. Why are some services provided by charities, they should be provided by not for profit organisation through a services level agreement with the various government department, fundraising for the organisation should be done through a foundation set up to support the organisation.

I volunteer with SVP. We regularly get calls from social workers in the HSE asking can we provide crèche fees or school bus fees for example for at risk families that they work with. There's so little funding available that charity's are regularly being asked to plug the gap.

The Backwards Man

Soft Falling Rain wrote: »

In 2011 it was estimated that it roughly took €10m a year to keep just Dublin Simon running. Half of that was government funded, other half had to be fundraised.

Given that the government has increasingly dealt cuts to Homeless services over the years, there's an even bigger emphasis on fundraising.

Organising such demands very much requires a CEO, and a proper management structure in order to ensure funds are put to the maximum use.

Fair enough, and if people want to donate to organisations like that then that's fair enough too, it's just not for me.


For me, anything less than 100% isn't maximising funds.

Specialun

Meh

I wipe my a55 with that kinda cash

mikeym

Why should I give money to a charity that pays a CEO €93,000 a year.

Its madness.

And then theres the charities that dont disclose their CEO's salaries.

I wonder what their doing with the donations?

The Backwards Man

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Fair enough, and if people want to donate to organisations like that then that's fair enough too, it's just not for me.


For me, anything less than 100% isn't maximising funds.

How should it be run then?

seamus

bur wrote: »

Yes, charities shouldn't be run as businesses. It's why there are so many bad ones.

The bad ones are the ones that have paid staff but aren't run like a business.
Running it like a community project rather than a business results in huge wastage, low staff morale and a very scattered and disjointed organisational structure. I've seen it happen to family members, it's an absolute mess and the ones who suffer are the staff and the charity cases they're trying to help.

Taking in money and running it as a community project is fine once it's all volunteers. Once someone is depending on the money for their livelihood, it's need to be run as a proper business.

On the other end of the scale of course then you get the likes of Concern and rehab where when it becomes too much like a business, it seems to lose sight of the purpose of the business and again massive amounts of money are wasted on running costs rather than being spent on charitable works.