Let's Get Real!?!
Posted by rational&honest  |  October 26, 2009 5:51:22 AM

I can't help but think about such comments as "According to UNICEF, $28 provides 2 family water kits, and that my donation of $28 will make a difference. This CEO's salary can provide clean water to 30,652 families!!! Does that make a difference???" What I can't help but think is... with all this self-rightous outrage... What are these commenters doing to make the world better? I must assume from their tone that they all ride bikes to work at their volunteer agencies, where they work tirelessly to solve the poor's every problem, only breaking at noon to eat meals they scrounged from a local dumpster so that they can save that lunch $ for the beggar on the corner. What saints! Does it occur to them, that unlike their holyselves, this CEO has human desires and wants to be paid to work. I suppose that UNICEF should wait until Ghandi's reincarnated soul returns to work for free..but until then, I guess maybe, just maybe..they should hire a complent CEO and pay them a below market salary.

Look at the program waste before the CEO
Posted by unnamed  |  October 26, 2009 5:49:57 AM

The salary is not the worst of unicef usa. Look at some of the things the include as program services (not fundraising) on there 990. Such as "The USF reached hundreds of thousands of supporters through issue oriented videos , television and public radio service announcements" 7.8 Million. To put that in prospective that is enough to pay the CEO for 20 years.The rest of the money just goes to other large UN organizations that have their own expenses. I'm not saying your money doesn't help kids. I'm just saying it could probably help them more somewhere else.

http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/131/131760110/131760110_200806_990.pdf

salary schmalary
Posted by JST  |  September 8, 2009 5:43:57 AM

Does Charity Navigator need a separate comment tab just for complaints about the CEO salary? Sometimes that's an issue, sometimes not. Penny-wise put things in perspective pointing out that Lyon's salary is only 0.11% of expenses.

UNICEF Boondoggle-Golden Parachute & Peer Pressure
Posted by Kimberley  |  August 20, 2009 11:12:01 AM

My company was fired for not yielding to the demand of my client to pressure employees to "give to UNICEF" & 100% workplace participation in 1994 so the client would look good. I looked behind the scenes at the exhorbitant pay & the "golden parachute" of the UNICEF CEO in 1993 and 1994. While a CEO should earn reasonable pay for the incredible demands, resposibility & pressures, the compensation & retirement plan of the UNICEF CEO was outrageous. Many working people were FORCED or embarrassed into giving to UNICEF through a carefully crafted plot to push 100% workplace participation through peer pressure. I refused. The client had someone call me twice & threaten me to participate or else. I stood my ground & unfortunately they gave my contract to another company which could be manipulated & played the UNICEF games.

CEO not the same
Posted by patchman  |  May 26, 2009 7:12:29 AM

A charitable organization that is handed money can't be compared to a business that devotes the majority of it's time working with raw/finished materials to create and make money. If GM or Ford was handed money, to do with what they want, then it would be a little closer. But GM and Ford wouldn't just hand the money back out buying materials, they'd have to create a ITEM OF WORTH.

Regarding Lyons, I see that he's no longer on the staff, but has been replaced by Caryln Sterns. Is she CEO material for a corporation? It's doubtful. Sterns previous experience was running the Anti-daefamation League. Again, that can in no way be compared to a CEO of a commercial business.

If you look that group up on this site you'll be disappointed to see the waste there. They may have good intentions, but check out their money flow. The Director made $530,000 in 2006. Admin/Fund was $16,800,000, and this was only on 79 Mill, in revenues.... Doesn't stop there... they have assets of $178,000,000...yea, that's 178 million!!

Their program expenses are a bit under 60 million in 2006,in which they spent more... This means they almost have 3 years worht of donations sitting as assets!!

Hopefully Ms Stern won't take this group in that direction, but as it stands, it doesn't look good.

Like another poster, I was checking a few of these groups. This is a decent site.... I mean Charity Navigator...... The 'International Childrens fund' looked pretty good, and on their site I saw that another smaller group (Feed My Starving Children) actually donated to them. Plus some older fellow runs it who's still hands on.

CEO of a Charitable Organization vs. Fortune 500
Posted by Confused  |  May 11, 2009 6:08:39 AM

While I am not defending UNICEF's decision to pay its CEO over $400,000 annually, you must take into consideration that this salary is likely a huge reduction from what this person could be earning if they were the CEO of a corporation. The particular experience and skill-set needed to run a massive organization such as UNICEF would also translate into big bucks in the corporate world. In order to attract good quality people to be in charge of their very important organization UNICEF has to be willing to compensate them at a rate that would attract them to the position. Given they they could earn more in the private sector, taking this position at $400,000+ at a non-profit should speak to their charitable nature, no matter what they decide to do with their salary. And for the record, I would hope that they do, in fact, contribute some of their own salary to UNICEF in its efforts to aid children around the globe.

How can you rate this charity with 4 stars??!
Posted by Krishna  |  March 17, 2009 5:56:36 AM

I cannot understand how you can rate this charity so highly when the CEO gets paid $429,000??!. Unless he is donating 10% of his salary to UNICEF? I can name several more charities who pay their CEO's less and do a better job of saving the World's children.

Charity begins at home
Posted by solmaker  |  March 1, 2009 10:54:13 PM

What I don't understand about the inflated salaries of charity CEOs is: 1) Are they personally charitable (that is, do they put their own money where their mouths are)? 2) Do they think their own charity it worth giving to? If the answer to both of the above two questions is "yes", then I don't understand why they don't make the charity they manage the focus of their own charitable giving by voluntarily accepting a reduced salary - especially considering how they hurt their own cause by accepting salaries that stick in the craw of potential donors. Since there are many other charitable options (take a look at IOCC for example!), I don't see how I can justify donating to a CEO who apparently thinks the charity he himself runs doesn't deserve a donation.

Put an end to CEO self-beneficience
Posted by echiprt  |  February 20, 2009 7:03:31 AM

There is a lot of need among the people UNICEF serves. Thus, the time has come for UNICEF and other such charities to stop the old pre-recession notions that CEO's are useless unless they are highly compensated. There are a lot of potential CEO's and financial geniuses out there looking for work and, at the same time, may feel more ethically constrained to maintain a reasonable salary. The US has no shortage of capable people.

I call on Charity Navigator to put more negative weight on high CEO salaries.

UNICEF president salary
Posted by Viktor  |  January 30, 2009 2:30:35 PM

I personally would not withhold my contributions, despite the inflated salary of the president, since in the end this is still a small fraction of the donations. However, I will donate with the full understanding that such a salary is unethical.

Some make a point that a successful fundraising justifies a $430K salary, especially since it involves managing more than $0.5 billion in funds. This argument doesn't hold water: compare for instance to compensation of large college presidents, with a typical annual budget of over 1 billion dollars (e.g. SUNY Stony Brook). Mind you, college presidents take a lot of flak for salaries over $350K, even though there is no implied charity element in what they do.

And may I add, this is more than the salary of the President of US of A. It is sad that the ridiculous inflated salaries that CEOs of *public* companies pay themselves skew all notions of propriety in the society as a whole.

re: salalry
Posted by Scottie  |  January 27, 2009 6:55:06 AM

My family has been supporting UNICEF since I was a small child and I am now nearing retirement. I respect the principles under which UNICEF was founded and admire all the good they have accomplished over the last half-century.

That having been said, I thought I might respond to "penny-wise" regarding her comments of October 30th. If the giving to UNICEF were to increase over the next couple of years, say twofold, would you then be comfortable with Mr. Lyon receiving $1M?

In a non-profit, we the supporters, directly pay the salaries of the principals. Unless we are on the board of directors though, the only fiduciary power we have is to withhold support and perhaps advertise our opinions. Probably because we have been supporters for so long, I went to the trouble of looking up their financial statements before passing judgement.

Personally, my family now chooses to withhold our support and wish to thank Charity Navigator for bringing this to our attention.

CEO Salary
Posted by kathyt  |  January 21, 2009 2:03:26 PM

My heart is broken for the children and people all over the world. Crying, begeing, hopping, hungry, and homelessness while some of these people are bidden for their huge salary and etc. I mean, i just want to know those with huge salaries are sharing their contribution as well to the good? hmm..

What the????
Posted by kfifield  |  January 21, 2009 10:36:07 AM

My husband and I were researching charities to give to and thought that UNICEF was a good one until we saw the CEOs salary. I believe in paying people with huge responsibility a good salary but any person taking in over $350k per year is a hog. I can't justify donating to a charity that prides itself on providing BASIC necessities to impoverished people and at the same time pays a staff a millionares salary. According to UNICEF, $28 provides 2 family water kits, and that my donation of $28 will make a difference. This CEO's salary can provide clean water to 30,652 families!!! Does that make a difference??? In these economic times, I really hope that someone from unicef will read this and things will change. Someone making over 300k a year, surely wouldn't feel the pinch with a cut and I'm sure it would positively boost chartible donations.

CEO Salary
Posted by boberonicus  |  December 30, 2008 7:22:08 AM

It is easy to criticize the CEO's salary. It is, perhaps, more difficult to run an organization that is responsible for the dissemination of almost half a billion dollars a year. Perhaps this requires talents beyond the grasp of, say, a gifted 20-something liberal arts grad that you could pay $50k/year. And given the four star rating, I'd argue he's worth every penny.

$429,135 CEO pay
Posted by JBAlaska  |  December 30, 2008 7:17:29 AM

I want to know that CEO's of large charities are motivated by human caring and not money.

Rant: No one should be entitled to such huge incomes, be they CEO or celebrity or otherwise. As a society we have to stop rewarding greed. The last place I expect to see an incredibly overpaid executive is a charitable organization. This goes for all of them, not just UNICEF. And so what if "all the other CEO's" are overpaid (my kids used to try this line on me: "all the kids get to..."), it's still wrong. There are many fine, talented, hard-working, individuals who would perform better than money motivated ones. If the board can't find them, it's because they haven't looked or don't want to. Rant done.

I do appreciate all the efforts of the caring volunteers and staff who do the real work of UNICEF. I will seek out ways to support them without contributing to overpaid executives.

CEO Compensation
Posted by zephyr1964  |  December 26, 2008 4:00:56 AM

I have been a regular contributor to UNICEF but cannot justify any further contributions to assist in such an unjustifable CEO compensation.

Pres. Compensation toooo High
Posted by G-Mom  |  December 24, 2008 4:23:00 AM

This might be a 4 star charity, I refuse to donate to UNICEF anymore with the President's yearly compensation so high.......There are other great 4 star charties that the President or CEO's compensation is at least 50% or more less......These are the charties I will be supporting.

CEO Compensation
Posted by CharM  |  December 23, 2008 2:45:03 PM

I, too, have wondered about CEO compensation at this level. But it occurs to me that it may reflect the perceived need for the CEO to be paid more than subordinates. And even the subordinates who can manage their segments of really large organizations likely require large compensation, too. So I think it would be more useful if we could see, say, the compensation of the top five individuals in these organizations.

real postage on return envelopes
Posted by Jerri  |  December 12, 2008 7:10:52 AM

why is UNICEF sending out donation requests with return envelopes that have real postage stamps on them. I asked at the post office if these were real stamps and the postal person said that doesn't look to good. Why are they sending out letters with 42 cent stamps and including 42 cent stamps on their return envelopes. I can only imagine how much money is tossed out. Is this what I am donating to?

salalry
Posted by penny-wise  |  October 30, 2008 12:35:43 PM

At first I was shocked at Lyon's salary of $429,135 but when see its .11% of expenses I wasn't so turned off.

President Charles J Lyon's salary
Posted by penny-wise  |  October 30, 2008 12:35:41 PM

How do you justify this salary for a non-for profit?

who are you talking about?
Posted by taichi  |  September 18, 2008 12:14:06 PM

... UNICEF doesn't have a president (?!)

half a million a YEAR?!?
Posted by sjupie  |  September 18, 2008 5:32:55 AM

The president of Unicef, Charles J. Lyon, gives himself $429,135 a year? I won't be doing "Trick or Treat for Unicef any more!!

give hope
Posted by Heidi Ann Berg  |  December 27, 2007 5:21:10 AM

what is money compared to a life