The Gates foundation pioneered this approach and imho it's the right way to operate in the sector.
EDIT: Found at least one source on US non-profits that excludes healthcare and university roles which skew numbers: https://analytics.excellenceingiving.com/2021-2022-nonprofit...
Suggesting $364k compensation for the CEO a nonprofit with $50M+ revenue. Wikimedia Foundation reports $150M+: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation
Specifically a great executive will personally move the fundraising needle in organizations (+1-5% or more) and mediocre executive can cause losses/missed opportunities in the opposite direction of a similar magnitude. The conventional thinking is the relative fundraising impact of a great vs a good executive may 10x their total compensation, so it's probably worth trying to retain the best.
Anecdotally, I know of a not-for-profit COO who offended an NBA player killing the relationship. His successor COO repaired the relationship, ultimately resulting in multiple millions of new donations and a co-marketing agreement with the team. When the COO was hired there were rumblings because he'd negotiated +$50k over his predecessor.
With no equity and the poor optics of commission compensation or cash-bonuses, big severance packages are one of the few ways an organization can reward employees following years of great service.
I could probably COO on the non-fundraising side, but I'd be an absolute fundraising failure. Non-profit C level execs are fundraisers.
Explorative projects like their New Editor Experience[1] were interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful moonshots. That one wrapped up (without anything to show for it, as far as I can tell). They didn't take the hint and downsize, they doubled down.
This is an incredibly common problem for organizations - "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" as was put by Oscar Wilde.
1. for regular employees. 2. Assuming market rate is fair and not minimum wage
There is no reason executive pay needs to follow market rate dynamics at a non profit. Otherwise you’ll have underpaid and free labor while executives milk the cow at 100x median pay rates and generous golden parachutes.
I hear this all the time for not-for-profits and government roles, it sounds good but just doesn't hold up. The leaders in these roles are not measured or held to the same metrics as private companies, they're not competing for the same jobs and they're not the same pool of candidates. The results prove this out: the metrics and tenure of "high paid" bureaucrats are no better than lower paid leaders at the orgs. The "we have to pay the same high comp to get the same high quality leaders" fallacy is misleading.
The best example is probably Singapore, which is surrounded by corrupt neighbors, and deeply involved in industries that thrive on corruption (shipping), but is notoriously a place where officials follow the rules.
A risk, but there's plenty of good managers, and money can only do so much to find someone that performs well.
> martyrs
This one isn't obvious, please explain more.
> having the vision co-opted by the wealthy who can afford to be underpaid
If you pay this much then you guarantee the person you hire has much more money than they need.
> the young who leave disillusioned
Why would paying... let's say 90th percentile US wages ($135k) disillusion anyone?