I generally and usually insist that a CEO salary does not in itself tell a story. I further understand that it is the board who sets a CEO's salary and that it is up to that board to decide what is "appropriate" given the marketplace (what others with similar budgets and operations are paid) and what is affordable by the nonprofit AND most importantly, what the CEO gets done for the board/organization.
Alas, all of this is true but just the same, there remains those in the public who, despite super-ridiculous and unconscionable salaries paid to corporate capitalists, always question, sometimes even the lowest salary of a nonprofit CEO. So despite all, optics matters, likely most to donors, it appears, the media, but equally so to regulators who are dragged into the fray when a salary becomes the center of a nonprofit's attention (versus of course, what it does in the world). Optics do matter and so the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence board is now mired in controversy that may not end well.
Basic fact: the CEO has a salary of $761,560. It perhaps matters that the salary two years ago was only $313,475 but I'm not sure how much, it matters, that is.
Now, if I did my math correctly, according to one interview by the press, the salary represents 2% of the budget so I believe that means the annual budget is somewhere in the $38 million category (oops, found it...$43 million to be precise). Frankly, if this were the corporate sector, no one would blink an eye. And yes, there are according to the Tampa Bay Times article nonprofit CEO's elsewhere in the state paid proportionately a lot less. Too bad for them for certain!
What we have here is a nonprofit that for sure has lost control of the message. The CEO's salary should not be the center of the story but the amazing outcomes the organization has achieved/achieves. And the board might have done and still should do a better job redirecting inquiries to this point. But the Times did it's job in finding a story that stimulates folks to actions they can take. The board may have failed in taking hold of this situation and now it's up to the politicians. It's all too bad, this misguided belief that a salary is the single standard of success. It's particularly too bad that this standard is only applied to the nonprofit success. Now all those who are seriously underpaid will never see better.
*New wrinkle in this story. It appears that salary optics IS an issue as is a huge salary proportionately larger than peers BUT another governance story lays below these realities as we learn in Governing:
Nonprofit boards decide executive salaries, and Carr's board is made up almost exclusively of current and former executive directors of domestic violence organizations around the state. The board has increased Carr's salary every year since 2011, which is the earliest year for which records are available. Those board members run programs that nearly all receive substantial portions of their budget from the coalition.
"That's a direct conflict of interest that should have been avoided," said Ravicher, the law professor. "If you're a recipient of grants from an organization you should not be on the board of directors. And it shouldn't be that the majority of board members are receiving grants from the organization."
The organization's conflict of interest policy states, "[The coalition] intends to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in all transactions."
The coalition's foundation arm was created as a separate nonprofit in 2012, with the mission to "broaden and deepen the resources of the FCADV," and has raised several hundred thousand dollars every year since. But it has yet to spend any of its money, according to the records. In that time, it has amassed a fund of more than $1.1 million, according to the most recently available financial documents.
This reality changes the picture completely. It is the majority of board members whose organizations are beholden to their own decisions and that of the CEO. For shame.