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May 15, 2009

Maryland County Blocks Grant Over Charity Executive's Pay

A suburban Washington county is withholding money for a local charity over its top executive’s pay, reports The Washington Examiner.

The Montgomery County, Md., Council eliminated a $55,000 grant to Food & Friends, a Washington nonprofit organization that delivers meals to people with HIV/AIDS and cancer, to “send a clear signal” about the compensation of the organization’s executive director, Craig Shniderman, council member George Levantha said. Mr. Shniderman earned $357,447 in salary and benefits in 2007.

Robert Hall III, president of the charity’s board, said the director’s pay was determined “after careful study” and following the recommendation of an independent consultant. Mr. Shniderman’s pay has been frozen this year.

Friday May 15, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

1. The Montgomery County Council is living in the dark ages. Sadly, they’re not the only ones. Presumably they’d prefer to see a $100,000 lower salary and a million dollar lesser benefit to the hungry. This insistence on self-deprivation comes from a Puritan mindset designed for another age. The people it’s ultimately depriving are the very ones we’re trying to help. By all means, let’s keep talent to a minimum and let the suffering continue. This seems to make everyone feel good.

   The mindset is dysfunctional, unethical, and a danger to human life.

   — Dan Pallotta    May 15, 04:13 PM    #

2. Yep, and this is just the tip of the iceberg! When you see the White House determining who to fire in large organizations and the rumors of limiting executive salaries, you know that it won’t be long until it hits closer to where we all live. God Bless the USA!

   — John    May 15, 04:40 PM    #

3. I beg to differ. I work for an executive at a nonprofit. When the disparity of executive pay against services rendered and/or other staff salaries is too great, your agency starts to smell rotten. From their 990 (found on Guidestar), it looks like specific assistance to individuals is 1.2 million. That means Shniderman’s compensation is about a third of their entire assistance to clients. Also, their next highest paid employee makes less than half what he makes. This sounds pretty disparate to me.

   — Lisa    May 15, 08:11 PM    #

4. If the government is receiving at least $55,000 of value for their grant, why is it any of their business how much the director of the company makes? I assume they don’t limit executive comp for their other vendors, including banks, lawyers and construction firms. What a bunch of misguided nonsense. Big Brother at its worst.

   — Allen Bromberger    May 15, 08:41 PM    #

5. The Food & Friends budget is approximately $8 million, not $1.2 million, and unless you’re asking the executive only to manage$1.2 million worth of the budget and turn a blind eye to the way the other $6.8 million worth of operations runs then you compensate them for the entirety of what they manage, not just one element of it.

   The fact that the next highest-paid employee makes only half as much is immaterial. In the for-profit sector it is often the case that the next-highest-paid employee makes 1/100th as much. On every level we have double-standards between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Everywhere the for-profit sector needs a “yes” it gets one – competitive compensation, ability to take risk, ability to pay profits to attract capital, ability to spend with tremendous freedom on advertising to build demand for their offering, and ability to look beyond an (arbitrary) 12-month window in measuring results. By the same token, everywhere the “non“profit sector needs a yes it gets a “no.” And then we expect the sector to solve the world’s most urgent problems. And worse, we call this whole dysfunction, of all things, “charity.”

   — Dan Pallotta    May 16, 07:22 AM    #

6. Lisa is correct in her statements, that in a budget of approximately $8 million only $1.2 million was direct service to their clients. This organization had over $6 million dollars in non service related expenses based on their most recent 990. As a nonprofit executive for over 25 years I find this ratio to be totally unacceptable. If I told my donors that the majority of their contributions were supporting non service related expenses my organization would not be in business. In the nonprofit world we are stewards of other individuals money and we must ensure that we utilize their support wisely, not to do so is unethical. When your staff and directors compensation (salaries and benefits -$3,376,422) is nearly 3 times the amount you are providing in direct service to the community something is wrong.

   With the downturn in the economy, the role nonprofits play in a community continues to increase, especially in the areas of basic needs. The demand for these services is growing at a rapid rate, especially as people loose their jobs and lifelines. Yes, each year as the economic conditions continue to spiral downwards and funding sources reduce their allocations, nonprofits are asked to do more with less, but what appears to be going on at the Food & Friends agency in Washington, DC is sending the wrong message to funders, whether they are corporate, foundation, governmental agencies or individuals, this is an unacceptable practice.

   — L. Nagy    May 16, 11:05 AM    #

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