Last year, while corporate executives’ salaries fell an average of 9%, nonprofit leaders got a 6% raise. More than 200 heads of charities made more than $1 million, while 80 nonprofit leaders in North and South Carolina alone earned compensation exceeding $500,000, according to the Charlotte Observer.

 

The newspaper found examples of nonprofits that burned through large portions of their budgets just to pay their CEOs, such as the late American Credit Counselors Corp., which was created to help people in deb,t but was forced to close in 2005 after it was revealed that it paid its executive director, John Waskin, more than $5 million.

 

David Cerullo, the Chairman and CEO of Inspiration Networks (INSP), a Christian broadcaster in South Carolina, was paid almost $1.7 million in 2008.

 

There are federal rules designed to keep nonprofits from overpaying their leaders, but they are rarely enforced. “The criteria for excessive compensation are so loose that they’re virtually worthless," Pablo Eisenberg, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, told the Charlotte Observer. “The sky’s the limit.”

 

It doesn’t help that the IRS office that monitors nonprofits only reviews 1% of all returns because it doesn’t have enough staff.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

For Too Many Nonprofits, Charity Starts at the Top (by Ames Alexander, Charlotte Observer)