Bahen said one of the things that surprised her, in looking at hundreds of charities across the country, is that large charities often spend a greater share of their budgets on fundraising than smaller charities do.
“I would have assumed, as an economist, that the bigger you are the more cost-efficient you are,” she said. “We’re not seeing that. It’s actually the big guys who typically lead in total fundraising costs and their fundraising costs are significantly higher than smaller, front-line organizations.”
Bahen has a theory for why that might be: big charities are in such fierce competition with each other for donations that they’re forced to spend more and more on fundraising just to keep up.
“It seems to be this arms race between charities to get a larger share of donors’ wallets,” she said.
The Canada Revenue Agency publishes guidelines that recommend charities keep their fundraising costs to less than 35 per cent of donations, though it notes there can be legitimate reasons for them to be higher.
Among B.C.’s Top 20 charities, only one — the Heart and Stroke Foundation of B.C. and Yukon — exceeds that limit, with fundraising costs last year equivalent to 45 per cent of total donations.
Bernice Scholten, vice-president of finance and administration for the foundation, defended the charity’s high costs, noting many of its fundraising programs — like door-to-door canvassing and Jump Rope for Heart school fundraising drives — help raise awareness about heart disease and healthy living despite bringing in relatively little money.
For example, said Scholten, canvassers hand out free material on heart disease when door-knocking and Jump Rope for Heart encourages physical activity among young people.
“Our view is that we provide vital health prevention information and educational activities” through fundraising, she said. “We probably touch millions of individuals.”
Last year, the provincial branches of Heart and Stroke were amalgamated into a single national charity, meaning the B.C. branch will stop reporting its finances separately beginning next year.
Among B.C.’s Top 20 charities, the Canadian Cancer Society of B.C. and Yukon was second in fundraising costs at 30 per cent.
“In some cases, in order to be able to have a huge impact in a very challenging area such as cancer, you do have to invest money to make money,” said Barb Kaminsky, the society’s CEO.
The society also said it is careful to account for all its fundraising costs, including assigning a portion of its heating bill to fundraising based on the number of staff in its offices who work in the fundraising department.
While they have higher fundraising costs than other major B.C. charities, both Heart and Stroke and the Cancer Society spend less on fundraising now than they did three years ago, according to Charity Intelligence.
Most of B.C.’s largest charities have fundraising costs between 10 and 25 per cent. However, there are some far lower, like the Vancouver Foundation at just two per cent.
Catherine Clement, the foundation’s spokeswoman, said that in fairness to other charities, the foundation is in a unique position because most of its funds come from endowments that were established decades ago and generate income every year.
And while the foundation creates new endowments every year, its reputation among large donors is so established now that it doesn’t have to do much to attract them.
“We’re not compelled to market in the same way” as other charities, she said. “People generally come to us.”
Another key indicator included in Charity Intelligence’s profiles is what charities pay their 10 highest-paid staff in salary and benefits, a figure charities are required to disclose to the CRA.
“There’s a common myth in the public that people who work in the charitable sector are underpaid,” said Bahen. “Looking at the biggest organizations, I would estimate their salaries are significantly above market rates in terms of benefits and salaries. Comparable at least to the private sector.”
In its research, Charity Intelligence looked at the most recent CRA filings available for each charity, which was 2011 data for most.
Of B.C.’s 20 largest charities, nine pay their top employee — usually the CEO — between $200,000 and $350,000 in total compensation, a figure that includes salary and benefits.
And another five charities pay their top employee $350,000 or more. Of those five, three are universities, whose presidents run major campuses with thousands of professors and students.
But the $350,000-plus club also includes the Fraser Institute and the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation.
On CRA’s salary-disclosure forms, $350,000-plus is the highest compensation category listed, so there’s no way from the forms alone to know how much above that level someone is paid.
BC Children’s Hospital Foundation wouldn’t say how much above $350,000 their top employee was paid, but said via email that the figure includes “one-time, additional compensation to a former employee.” In other years, CRA forms show, the foundation paid its top employee between $250,000 and $300,000, not $350,000-plus.
The Fraser Institute would only say it pays its top employee no more than $450,000.
Neither charity would say who at their organization made that amount, whether it was their president or someone else. Both charities, however, defended their decisions to pay top dollar.
“There is a global marketplace for talent,” said Niels Veldhuis, president of the Fraser Institute, a think-tank. “If you don’t pay someone their market wage rate, they go elsewhere.”
In an emailed statement, the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation said it benchmarks all of its staff salaries — from the CEO on down — against similar-sized Canadian charities, aiming to pay at around the 75th percentile, meaning better than three-quarters of their counterparts.
“In order to attract and retain competent staff, salaries must be competitive with similar organizations,” the statement said. “There is high demand for experienced fundraisers.”
The fierce competition for talent in the charitable sector is even being felt at the penny-pinching Terry Fox Foundation.
Among B.C.’s Top 20 charities, the Terry Fox Foundation pays its top employee the least: between $80,000 and $120,000, according to CRA filings.
However, Fox noted its national director position has been vacant since last spring.
He said the foundation has been looking for someone who can take the charity to the next level: maintaining the Terry Fox runs while also finding new sources of revenue. But finding someone with those skills willing to take the job at the current pay has proven difficult.
Fox said he doubts the foundation will be paying its national director $300,000 any time soon. But he said it might have to bump up the salary a bit to stay in the game.
“In order for us to raise more money or go into a different area of fundraising, we might need to bring somebody in that’s different than what we’ve had before,” said Fox. “And we might have to pay that person a little bit more than what we’ve been used to.”
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發表於 2012-12-1 06:51
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