"Canadians open their hearts and wallets to donate billions to worthy causes. It is time charities open their books, disclose their top salaries and accept a salary cap that amounts to five times the average donor's income."
says Liberal MP Albina Guarnieri and I definitely agree with her. Would you have thought that the charitable organization SickKids Foundation, to which I am sure countless millions of Canadians donate to regularly, would be so stocked with donors' money that they let their head walk away with $2.7 Million in salary and severance in a single year? That's what happened according to the article the MP read in one of Canada's newspapers and it got her thinking that this was definitely not right and gave birth to the bill she has put forth to demand more transparency from Canadian charities and to limit the pay of any employee to not more than a quarter mil/year. more here
I'm not sure I see a problem-- although perhaps we might reconsider government funding for charities.
ReplyDeleteIf the head of a charity is worth that kind of money, I don't see the problem. If you want competent people, you have to pay them the going rate.
According to the Calgary Herald, less than 30% of Canadians account for 78% of money given to charity. In fact, Canadians give much less than Americans. Charities are not rich and Canadians are not opening their hearts and wallets to charities. I think Canadian taxpayers deserve to know how politicians and government subsidized corporations spend their money, not charities, most of which depend on no taxpayer funding. Government should stay out of charities, especially since charities are filling the gap left by increasingly unsustainable social welfare policies. The charitable sector is increasingly picking up the slack left by the government and since demand for social services is shifting, it will only make the charitable sector more important. Check out this study done by a think tank regarding the importance of the charitable sector. https://cardus.ca/store/1508/
ReplyDeleteI think your criticism of charities is misplaced and un-conservative. Why allow another beneficial, and well-run sector of our society to be taken over by government regulations and oversight? Let the free market deal with charities. If donors don't have confidence in their charity, they will shift to another charity that has more accountability and better results. You would be surprised at how many charities these days voluntarily disclose how donations are spent. A good example of this is the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. http://www.ecfa.org/
My peeve is with the salaries the top executives get... not anything else. The very word "charity" should imply, IMO, that those who are dispensing of it would volunteer to take less so the real receipients who needs the charity gets more.
ReplyDeleteHow mcuh does the prime minister's job pay? it is the most important job in canada. Prime minister Harper makes only 300,000 cd. and charities CEOs make more? SOmething Not Right.
ReplyDeleteYee according to you because this blogger is conservative he should not question salary of charity company or maybe because it is a liberal mp who wants to bring on the change and not a conservative mp that you dislike?
"If donors don't have confidence in their charity, they will shift to another charity that has more accountability and better results."
ReplyDeleteYou've contradicted your own argument,Yee. How else can donors evaluate a charity than by the percentage of donations that is used to pay staff salaries and operating costs?
Investigations in times past have shown that some charities only use about 10% of their income for the original cause while operating costs are prohibitively high.
I quit donating to United Way many years ago when CTV revealed the CEO was paid $500,000 per year,which at the time was higher than many CEO's of big corporations.
Then we had a scandal back in the 90's,when the head of the Vancouver Food Bank was revealed to be making $60,000 a year, and was borrowing money for personal use. Though she always paid it back, it was NOT embezzlement, it left a very bad impression with donors.60k was a very good salary at that time.
I now support local charities that do some good in a direct way, and most of the staff are volunteers.
DMorris
dmorris,
ReplyDeleteYou just proved my point. Free market principles are very aplicable to this area. You stopped donating to United Way because you were not happy with them. That is how it should work. If a enough people have concerns about a charity's openness, chances are that less donations will be coming in, and chances are that if less donations come in, the charity will try to be transparent. The government shouldn't be telling us what charities are worth or not worth donating to.Its the donor's responsibility to evaluate the charity and decide if it is worthy of support, not some government agency.There are many independent organizations that keep track of accountability and transparency among charities.
My point is not contradictory at all. If a charity is not being accountable to the donors, it will be quite obvious to the donors themselves. I think it is ultimately the donor's responsibility how they spend their money and what criteria they use. The whole idea of the government protecting us from ourselves is completely contrary to conservative ideals.
Yee, I know people of modest means who give sacrificially. Their money should not be going to fund lavish lifestyles for top executives. Agreed, those working for a charity deserve decent pay, but they should also be 'donating' as well. If they don't want that, then they should not be working in the charitable sector.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how easy it is to determine the wages of the top people at charities. It would be interesting if these figures were published, just as they are for top executives in public companies. I know I would scrutinize more where my donations went if the info were out there and easy to get to.