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Charities offer big pay to draw talent
Salaries can go up to $300k a year at some non-profit organisations
By Judith Tan
NON-PROFIT organisations are offering their top managers salaries that match those outside the charity sector to attract the best talent.
A check by The Straits Times of the websites and annual reports of such organisations shows medical charities - such as the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Ren Ci Hospital & Medicare Centre - and religious organisations to be the best paymasters.
Pay packages can go up to $300,000 a year at some of these bodies, comparable with the $310,600 a managing director outside the charity sector makes.
An audited statement for the NKF's financial year that ended last June, for example, indicates that 10 people in key management roles there were being paid between $100,001 and $300,000 each.
Its four most highly paid employees each took home $220,001 to $300,000 a year; six others were paid $100,001 to $150,000 each in the same period. Its spokesman disclosed that the salary of its highest earner is between $250,001 and $300,000. The Straits Times understands that this is the salary of Dr Mooppil Nandakumar who, as head of medical services, is responsible for the charity's 2,774 kidney patients and beneficiaries.
The spokesman added: 'We need to benchmark our salaries to public hospitals. If we don't, we won't be able to attract doctors to work for us.'
The Charity Council fine-tuned the process of salary disclosure last month to make it a requirement for non-profit agencies to declare the earnings of their three most highly paid employees.
Previously, only the salaries of those drawing more than $100,000 a year had to be declared.
The council's guidelines to tighten governance in the charities - which extend beyond salary disclosure to programme management and fund-raising, and the composition of their boards - have been in place since 2007.
They were introduced in an overhaul of the charity sector following the 2005 NKF scandal in which the lack of checks and balances saw its former chief T.T. Durai being paid more than $600,000 a year - a sum which outraged the public.
The salaries of top earners from Ren Ci Hospital & Medicare Centre also show that the organisation is willing to pay good money to land the best managerial talent.
Its latest annual report - in the wake of its own scandal in 2007 over chief executive Ming Yi's court case on dodgy financial accounting - indicates that its highest-paid employee earned a gross salary of between $100,001 and $150,000 last year.
This is a drop from 2009, when its top earner was paid between $250,001 and $300,000.
Ren Ci declined to say who this person was.
Among religious organisations which pay well is mega church City Harvest.
Its online financial statements for the financial year that ended in October 2009 indicate that close to a quarter of its $40 million in expenses went to staff salaries and allowances. A rough calculation shows the average annual remuneration of each of its workers to be almost $62,000.
In 2005, New Creation, another mega church, disclosed that it paid one employee between $500,001 and $550,000 a year. It did not say whether this employee was its leader, Senior Pastor Joseph Prince.
But he and Pastor Kong Hee of City Harvest have since taken themselves off the payroll.
The salaries of the head honchos at charities providing social services, however, are only about half those of their counterparts in organisations which pay well.
For instance, former lawyer Tim Oei took a pay cut of up to 30 per cent to head the Asian Women's Welfare Association (Awwa) - which runs a special school and a community home for the destitute elderly, among other services.
At Awwa, two staff members are paid between $100,001 and $150,000 each, and one, more than $150,000.
Charity Council chairman Fang Ai Lian said charities should 'professionalise themselves' and pay for talent.
'It will cost money, but I think the outcome will outweigh the cost.
The sector needs good management, especially in the larger outfits,' she said.
Agreeing, associate professor Mak Yuen Teen - who headed the committee which fine-tuned the Charity Council's code of governance - said a gross disparity between the charities and the corporate and professional world would make it tough for the charity sector to attract and keep the best talent.
[email protected]
Salaries can go up to $300k a year at some non-profit organisations
By Judith Tan
NON-PROFIT organisations are offering their top managers salaries that match those outside the charity sector to attract the best talent.
A check by The Straits Times of the websites and annual reports of such organisations shows medical charities - such as the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and Ren Ci Hospital & Medicare Centre - and religious organisations to be the best paymasters.
Pay packages can go up to $300,000 a year at some of these bodies, comparable with the $310,600 a managing director outside the charity sector makes.
An audited statement for the NKF's financial year that ended last June, for example, indicates that 10 people in key management roles there were being paid between $100,001 and $300,000 each.
Its four most highly paid employees each took home $220,001 to $300,000 a year; six others were paid $100,001 to $150,000 each in the same period. Its spokesman disclosed that the salary of its highest earner is between $250,001 and $300,000. The Straits Times understands that this is the salary of Dr Mooppil Nandakumar who, as head of medical services, is responsible for the charity's 2,774 kidney patients and beneficiaries.
The spokesman added: 'We need to benchmark our salaries to public hospitals. If we don't, we won't be able to attract doctors to work for us.'
The Charity Council fine-tuned the process of salary disclosure last month to make it a requirement for non-profit agencies to declare the earnings of their three most highly paid employees.
Previously, only the salaries of those drawing more than $100,000 a year had to be declared.
The council's guidelines to tighten governance in the charities - which extend beyond salary disclosure to programme management and fund-raising, and the composition of their boards - have been in place since 2007.
They were introduced in an overhaul of the charity sector following the 2005 NKF scandal in which the lack of checks and balances saw its former chief T.T. Durai being paid more than $600,000 a year - a sum which outraged the public.
The salaries of top earners from Ren Ci Hospital & Medicare Centre also show that the organisation is willing to pay good money to land the best managerial talent.
Its latest annual report - in the wake of its own scandal in 2007 over chief executive Ming Yi's court case on dodgy financial accounting - indicates that its highest-paid employee earned a gross salary of between $100,001 and $150,000 last year.
This is a drop from 2009, when its top earner was paid between $250,001 and $300,000.
Ren Ci declined to say who this person was.
Among religious organisations which pay well is mega church City Harvest.
Its online financial statements for the financial year that ended in October 2009 indicate that close to a quarter of its $40 million in expenses went to staff salaries and allowances. A rough calculation shows the average annual remuneration of each of its workers to be almost $62,000.
In 2005, New Creation, another mega church, disclosed that it paid one employee between $500,001 and $550,000 a year. It did not say whether this employee was its leader, Senior Pastor Joseph Prince.
But he and Pastor Kong Hee of City Harvest have since taken themselves off the payroll.
The salaries of the head honchos at charities providing social services, however, are only about half those of their counterparts in organisations which pay well.
For instance, former lawyer Tim Oei took a pay cut of up to 30 per cent to head the Asian Women's Welfare Association (Awwa) - which runs a special school and a community home for the destitute elderly, among other services.
At Awwa, two staff members are paid between $100,001 and $150,000 each, and one, more than $150,000.
Charity Council chairman Fang Ai Lian said charities should 'professionalise themselves' and pay for talent.
'It will cost money, but I think the outcome will outweigh the cost.
The sector needs good management, especially in the larger outfits,' she said.
Agreeing, associate professor Mak Yuen Teen - who headed the committee which fine-tuned the Charity Council's code of governance - said a gross disparity between the charities and the corporate and professional world would make it tough for the charity sector to attract and keep the best talent.
[email protected]
