[Foundation-l] Corporate Social Responsibility

Sun Nov 21 01:27:16 UTC 2010

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On 20/11/2010 02:40, Nathan wrote:

> I've never heard of a major charity in the world without at least some paid
> employees.
Hello Nathan.

I hope that you don't feel threatened by novelty. Please don't close
your mind to my ideas just because you've never heard of them. The
Wikipedia idea begins by "Imagine".

Being paid and receiving very high salaries are two different things. It
seems you're talking about the first. I'm talking about the second.

> Some of the largest charities, like the Red Cross, have thousands
> of employees including highly compensated executives.
"Red Cross" and "Corruption" yield more than a million pages on google.
Here's a sample (from 2005)[1]:
"Despite landing in trouble for soliciting more donations than they need
and squirreling the rest away, the Red Cross continues to operate this
way. [...] Last year alone, the Red Cross spent $111 million in fund
raising, and their CEO Marsha Evans made just under $652,000. It seems
the the main value they offer is the free help of their volunteer force."

Your comparison with the Red Cross is indeed insightful about what kind
of profit can be done with a non-profit organization and how unethical
behaviors can be found in ethical causes.

> The type of work the
> Foundation does requires full time staff with considerable talent and
> experience.
> It's unrealistic to expect the Foundation to acquire these
> resources without fair compensation.
You think that nobody amidst the hundred of thousands of motivated
volunteers would have the skills while accepting to work for a decent
and humble salary. I'd like to prove you wrong, if there were a
authentic will from the Foundation to have a try.

> [some stuff reducing the problem to my person]
I think that shifting the debate to my insignificant person is pointless
and uninteresting. If you're really interested about my person, which I
doubt, we can talk on another channel.

> In any case, the law presents both an obligation to report certain facts and
> an obligation to keep other facts confidential. The Foundation discloses
> what it needs to, and even were the WMF a for-profit corporation and you an
> actual shareholder you would be entitled to no more detail than that.
That's the US centric, legal aspect. But what about the ethical aspect
and the big picture?
Here's an article from 2003 [2], well worth the reading, that shows some
dangers of nonprofits.
An excerpt:
"In recent years AIP has seen nonprofits increasingly attempt to silence
their employees. We believe that nonprofit groups should discontinue
employee contracts or severance agreements that contractually disallow
employees or former employees to speak to outsiders about serious
organizational problems. This serves to stop most employees or potential
whistleblowers, who could warn the public of mismanagement or serious
ethical breaches that charity executives may be attempting to cover up."

[1]: http://www.damninteresting.com/can-we-trust-the-red-cross
[2]:
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