Board "Service" - More than service in Corporate World

According to today's Chicago Tribune, unlike service on a nonprofit board, it can really pay to "serve" on a for-profit board.

"Half of all corporate directors made between $52,479 and $165,000."  Some made a lot more.  Take for example, Allen Wise, former CEO of Coventry Health Care who got $7.7 million and Dennis Horowitz of Wolverine Tube who got $5.94 million.  Both of these totals include "compensation that's part of their retirement packages."

"Making sure the corporation performs well" is one justification for great pay levels.  Paying competitively is another rationale.  Plus there's an increased workload and regulations going back to Enron.

And still in the nonprofit sector, board members aren't compensated, or when they are they are certainly not compensated at these levels.  And isn't the workload equally demanding?  Maybe it's time to reconsider the tradition of not compensating for nonprofit board service and coming up with some degree of standard compensation.  Maybe then nonprofits would get more consistent whole-hearted service.