Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Ka-ching

Where does your hard-earned money go when you donate to a national charity in Canada? Well, at least part of it may be going to extremely high salaries for some top officials. A report in today’s Globe & Mail says some of Canada’s largest and best-known charities are paying top officials more than $300,000 annually, government filings show. That’s three hundred with a whole bunch of zeroes behind it. Top earners include executives at Plan International Canada Inc., Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario, York University Foundation and five hospital foundations. Those charities all paid their chief executives more than $300,000 last year. Some interesting ones: the head of the Salvation Army Territorial Headquarters in Toronto pulled in nearly a quarter of a million last year. The head of Plan International Canada (formerly Foster Parents Plan) hauled between 300-350 thousand dollars. Now, I understand that you need good talent, but it strikes me that a charity that raises its funds a dollar at a time or in a kettle at Christmas should not be paying its top dogs that much. Makes me even less inclined to consider Foster Parents Plan as a target for donations. Charity doesn’t have to end at home, but it can certainly begin here.

2 comments:

Wisewebwoman said...

One of my pet peeves too, VP.
A post I wrote in 2008 you may enjoy/grind teeth on:

http://wisewebwoman.blogspot.com/search?q=pink+me+stupid

I am very, very inquisitive when I donate today. I've been known to ask for financial statements when suspicious. I gave up on FPP quite a few years ago.


XO
WWW

ViewPoint2010 said...

What it's meant for me is that generally now, I only donate to local causes where I know and can see how the funds are admnistered. If you look at the pie charts for some of the big multi-national operations, admin costs are excessive even though the NGOs try to spin the numbers in their favour. The $alvation Army $alary of nearly a quarter of a million blew me right out of the water.