At least in the US, Cabinet members, judges, senior career civil servants, and state governors tend to make on average half that. I have heard of some people who would be good federal judges, mainly at the district-court level, turning down nominations because they couldn’t stomach the 85-90% pay cut from being a big-firm partner. The quality of some of these senior political and judicial leaders varies . . . but I don’t think money is the real limiting factor in US leader quality. That is, I don’t get the sense that the US would generally have better leaders if the salaries at the top were doubled or tripled.
The non-salary “benefits” and costs of working at high levels in the government are different from the non-salary “benefits” and costs of working for a non-profit. But I think they differ in ways that some people would prefer the former over the latter (or vice versa).
In other words, a belief that charities should offer their senior leaders a significantly higher salary than senior leaders in world and regional governments potentially implies that almost every developed democracy in the world should be paying their senior leaders and civil servants significantly more than they do. Maybe they should?
I don’t have a firm opinion on salaries for charitable senior officials, but I think Nick is right insofar as high salaries can cause donor disillusionment and loss of morale within the organization. So while I’m willing to start with a presumption that government-comparable salaries for mid-level+ staff are appropriate (because they have been tested by the crucilble of the democratic process), it’s reasonable to ask for evidence that significantly higher salaries improve organizational effectiveness for non-profits.
I’ve always thought the salaries of chief executives of various countries may provide an external vantage point on the reasonableness of charity-executive salaries. They tend to top out at 400K USD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_salaries_of_heads_of_state_and_government.
At least in the US, Cabinet members, judges, senior career civil servants, and state governors tend to make on average half that. I have heard of some people who would be good federal judges, mainly at the district-court level, turning down nominations because they couldn’t stomach the 85-90% pay cut from being a big-firm partner. The quality of some of these senior political and judicial leaders varies . . . but I don’t think money is the real limiting factor in US leader quality. That is, I don’t get the sense that the US would generally have better leaders if the salaries at the top were doubled or tripled.
The non-salary “benefits” and costs of working at high levels in the government are different from the non-salary “benefits” and costs of working for a non-profit. But I think they differ in ways that some people would prefer the former over the latter (or vice versa).
In other words, a belief that charities should offer their senior leaders a significantly higher salary than senior leaders in world and regional governments potentially implies that almost every developed democracy in the world should be paying their senior leaders and civil servants significantly more than they do. Maybe they should?
I don’t have a firm opinion on salaries for charitable senior officials, but I think Nick is right insofar as high salaries can cause donor disillusionment and loss of morale within the organization. So while I’m willing to start with a presumption that government-comparable salaries for mid-level+ staff are appropriate (because they have been tested by the crucilble of the democratic process), it’s reasonable to ask for evidence that significantly higher salaries improve organizational effectiveness for non-profits.