Charity - Is it normal for the CEO to be paid.

[Deleted User]

Ok so I walk past my local charity shop daily and they sell a number of things and seem to give the money to some dogs home that I have never heard of.

Is is that the Director at the top of this charity shop is just running the charity to earn themselves a wage???

I have been looking to start my own charity (nothing massive), but I have always been of the theory that you must do it for free, otherwise you will look bad! and may be bad! (I don't know)

So if I were to do it for free, we would make far less as I just wouldn't have time.

If I were to work at the Charity full time and they may my rather cheap wages, I'd make far more.

But which is the correct way to go or are both options still a good thing to do...

Charitymanager

assj wrote: »

Ok so I walk past my local charity shop daily and they sell a number of things and seem to give the money to some dogs home that I have never heard of.

Is is that the Director at the top of this charity shop is just running the charity to earn themselves a wage???

I have been looking to start my own charity (nothing massive), but I have always been of the theory that you must do it for free, otherwise you will look bad! and may be bad! (I don't know)

So if I were to do it for free, we would make far less as I just wouldn't have time.

If I were to work at the Charity full time and they may my rather cheap wages, I'd make far more.

But which is the correct way to go or are both options still a good thing to do...

It is absolutely usual for the CEO of a charity to be paid and there should be no problem with that.

It is also usual for someone who sets up a charity to subsequently be employed by them, however that would be reliant upon the board that was set up to govern the charity going through a fair recruitment process and appointing that individual.

Setting up a charity must be driven by an identified need or gap however, otherwise it will likely fail.

phill99

There are many thousands of small charities that are run by volunteers who are keen to plough all of the income into their chosen charity.

However, there are many large charities on both a national and international scale that are so large and have such a huge charitable income that the only way they can be managed is by having paid employees. Big christies are now like big businesses. Think RNLI, Guide Dogs for the Blind, NSPCC, Dogs Trust, RSPCA, RNIB, RNID, Mind, Oxfam, Salvation Army etc. all of these are leders in their fields and the anagement teams have to have the same skill sets as any big business. They need to have good marketing skills, communication skills, staff motivation skills, administrative skills etc. When you look at the income of some of these large charities it runs into tens of millions and in some cases hundreds of millions. These are no different to running a large company. Effectively they are run as businesses but with 'profits' going to the appropriate cause (animal welfare, lifeboats etc) instead of shareholders.

Unfortunately, you are not going to generate 10's of millions of pounds by Ada and Betty selling some home made jam at the church bazaar.

Charitymanager

I agree with what you are saying Phill, but there are also thousands of charities that sit inbetween Ada and Betty and big nationals. Many local charities are run in a very business like way.

phill99

Charitymanager wrote: »

I agree with what you are saying Phill, but there are also thousands of charities that sit inbetween Ada and Betty and big nationals. Many local charities are run in a very business like way.

I agree entirely. I used to work for a London based community education charity. Been going over 400 years, full time paid CEO, full time paid staff (20+) as well as volunteers. Without full time staff, we couldn't operate.

[Deleted User]

Interesting to know that, thanks for the replies!

jamesmorgan

There are a number of different ways of structuring a charity, however, most charities are run by the trustees (or board of governors). These are usually volunteers and only provide a relatively small amount of their time to their role. For a charity of any size one of the first roles of the trustees is to recruit the executive team who are responsible for day to day operations of the charity. Typically this will consist of a CEO and CFO (or Finance Director). These are normally paid and full time roles. For large charities, salaries for these roles will typically be six figure and commensurate with similar roles in the private sector. The executive team are responsible for recruitment of other roles within the charity. Normally full-time roles are paid. Roles that only involve up to 1-2 days/wk are sourced by volunteers where possible. Obviously for a very small charity all of these roles can be combined into one person although it is best practice to separate the role of the trustees from the 'doing' roles within the charity.

Ultimately charities have similar structures and pay to private companies except they have no obligation to generate profits for their shareholders.

YoYoY

assj wrote: »

Ok so I walk past my local charity shop daily and they sell a number of things and seem to give the money to some dogs home that I have never heard of.

Is is that the Director at the top of this charity shop is just running the charity to earn themselves a wage???

I have been looking to start my own charity (nothing massive), but I have always been of the theory that you must do it for free, otherwise you will look bad! and may be bad! (I don't know)

So if I were to do it for free, we would make far less as I just wouldn't have time.

If I were to work at the Charity full time and they may my rather cheap wages, I'd make far more.

But which is the correct way to go or are both options still a good thing to do...

Fyi... this data from 2003

Peter Cardy, CEO Macmillan Cancer Relief earns £100,000 p.a.

Mary Marsh, CEO NSPCC, earns £105,000 p.a.

Andrew Freemantle, CEO RNLI, earns £105,000 p.a.

Paul Nurse, CEO Cancer Research UK, earns £140,000 p.a.

Nicholas Young, CEO British Red Cross, earns £125,000 p.a.

Duncan Green, CEO Battersea Dogs Home, earns £85,000 p.a.


meanwhile, ...

Alex Hughes, CEO Sally Ann, earns just £10,540 p.a.

(but does also have the cost of housing, furniture, car, insurance and council tax fully paid for by the charity :cool:)


Last year (2011) the average salary of the chief executives of the UK’s top-100 charities was £166,048. Even after removing the top 5 highest paid CEOs, the average was still £138, 949 p.a.

In a separate survey, again carried out in 2011, of 600 UK charities the average chief executive salary was in excess of £60,000 p.a.

[Deleted User]

So if for some reason in the future I find something that I would like to create a charity for, at the moment I just don't have anything that I feel so strongly about - by this I mean I can give to another charity to help or raise money for them if I want to help a certain cause.

Would it be unfair for me to go into the charity with the view that I would eventually become a full time employee, reliant on the charity for my income, whilst giving it my best too!

P.S - I'm not about to start one based on this, I am trying to start a business at the moment and that's been hard enough! :cool:

Charitymanager

In many respects you couldnt start a charity with that in mind as ultimately when the Board of trustees was appointed it would cease to be your responsibility to recruit, unless you were on the board, and if you were to be recruited you would have to step out of the process anyway.

That said, many charities are set up that way and end up employing their founder. The one I work for is a shining example although that ended pretty disastrously.

Another word of caution is that charity founders in my experience often make terrible employees as they have too much perceived ownership but cant have the level of control. Not saying this will be the case with you, but egos and sensitivity can be a massive problem.

Why not just apply for a job with a charity (playing devi's advocate)

I also think that the reason you start a charity must be based on an identified need rather than a cause you feel strongly about. There are too many charities that serve little if any meaningful purpose.

daveyjp

As soon as a charity needs paid staff it needs to set up a trading arm.