This is more of a system issue than bad behavior of an individual charity.

Charities can underpay a little bit, because working for a charity has its own appeal. But if you want a talented, experienced person to run your org, you have to consider what they could make if they worked for someone else. San Diego is not a cheap city, and has its fair share of CEO positions.

If you really want to stretch your dollar though, local food banks are probably a better bet.

https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/sites/default/files/2024-07/2023-SDZWA-Annual-Report.pdf

Total revenue per year is 420 million.

Concessions and cleaning staff typically make 35k-40k. Zookeepers ~50k.

These 5 employees. Amount to .8% of the yearly operating budget, while the sum of all other employees totals up to 10% of the 400 million dollar operating budget.

I’m not making any judgements, just offering the numbers.

This is a good reminder that you can look up Form 990 for any nonprofit (they are required to submit one), which includes any staff that make over $100k.

https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

Also, it looks like the “salaries” you found are total compensation, which also includes medical and retirement benefits. The CEO’s salary is around $600k, but also got a $300k+ bonus.

For a second I thought this was a hit list.

My wife works for a non-profit where the Executive Director (CEO if you will) cannot make more than 5x what the lowest paid person makes. Wish more non-profits would adopt something similar

You earn less than 20k? Save your money, volunteer your time! Much more productive and rewarding!

Blood banks. “Your blood saves lives”. Is actually “We can sell your blood to hospitals for $200 per pint”. Check the salaries of the non-profit blood bank CEO and board. I would gladly share my blood if I’m paid $100 per pint, or if they gave insurance vouchers for a free pint of blood, to avoid insurance charging $1000-3000 to get a pint back. In fact they could just call it “blood insurance” where your premium is paid in regular blood donations.

Charities and billionaires are the polar extremes of the same policy failure. In a healthy society neither should exist, and when they do they should be tolerated for a minimal time as possible.

Charities and philanthropy exist to permit governments and corporations to abdicate their social responsibilities.

When the work a charity does is properly valued by a society, it’s economy would never need to carve out a special, nonprofit status for it.

I’ve given up on charity. They’ve lobbied sites like Charity Navigator to not count executive compensation as a negative. I’m sick of capitalism ruining everything.

Was put to me at a young age that non-profit only means they spend any revenue they get before it gets to the bottom line to show up as a gain or loss. Always good to sort out the shady from the legit.

Give it to the San Diego food bank instead. It's a good charity from what I've seen, and I've volunteered there at least half a dozen times.

What the heck is a chief philanthropy officer?

I took a huge pay cut when I worked for a non profit. :(

Mutual aid is where it's at.

Charities are good business. That's why there are a lot of them.

No affiliation, and I've never donated to them, but their financials are far from the worst:

There are many charities that don't spend the majority of donations on the actual program. Like, wtf...

Management and marketing bloat is extremely common for nonprofits, unfortunately. Especially large ones.

Ones that don't do that exist too, but it's a thing you have to be wary of.

The head of the American Red Cross makes about 750k, last I heard.

Whether or not that's justified either, I think we can all agree it's a little bit larger of an organization with more responsibility to juggle.

I suggest donating to your local wild animal rescue/rehabber. They're all volunteer based. They receive $0 public money. The public rarely sees the work they do. They're doing physically and mentally taxing work purely for the love of animals.

They typically all have a donation page, and many have Amazon Wishlists where you can send them cleaning, maintenance, or medical supplies directly if you're worried about the money going to something you might not intend.

Nothing will go to people. You won't have to question if you're really help an animal that may or may not exist in a country you'll never see. They're your neighborhood animals.

As the !superbowl@lemmy.world person here, I look specifically for a raptor rehabbers to donate to, and I share links to those rescues worldwide.

I can't find my link to the world rescue database, but for a US based one, you can look here or just Google up "wild animal rescue near me" and you should get some options.

Unpopular opinion: Charities should be morally allowed to compete for top talent on a financial basis.

Here's the thing: I don't know about this charity in particular. But in general, a big charity is just as complicated a business as a big for profit company.
The task of managing it isn't any easier. So the people who have experience in managing big businesses can get that kind of money elsewhere, too.
In our system, the charity is pretty much forced to pay competitive CEO salaries if they want experienced people at the helm.
If they paid much less, they wouldn't get anyone to do the job who's actually competent.