Like Owen all I can offer is anecdata. I’ve worked in nonprofits or public sector jobs during my career and there is a serious brain drain problem. Again I don’t have specific numbers but it is talked about frequently, and definitely felt. I know several talented, thoughtful, hard working people who left nonprofit work because there was no money, and no expectation of this changing through their career.
In my experience there is actually the established norm that if you are asking for money on-par with what your position would earn in for-profit you are vilified. This is one reason I mentioned improving nonprofits in my previous comment. I have the impression that changing some of the cultural norms around nonprofit work would create the turnover necessary to lift an under-preforming organization into EA efficacy.
Has there been much thought or discussion put into the idea of making existing charities more effective? Sure there are lots of organizations out there that focus on making marketing more effective or getting more donors; but there seems to be a big whole in the market for people or organizations that work to turn current charities into ones we would consider effective. I’ve thought about this myself quite frequently and would be stoked to see something like this. Has this already been discussed elsewhere?