Saturday, March 24, 2007


What Exactly Are the Top Salaries at HRC?
I'm feeling at times like the name of this blog should change to "HRC Watch," what with so much posted here lately about the group, but that name is already taken by transgender activist Ethan St. Pierre.

Here's some new information to consider as we evaluate the accountability and effectiveness of HRC -- total compensation amounts of the top leaders.

Surely these totals are in line with what people in similar positions make at other nonprofit advocacy organizations with budgets of $38 million, so my point here is not that the salaries and contributions to benefits packages at HRC are necessarily outrageously high, but rather I want to simply sunshine the information because I see my role as the queer town crier.

Here's the list of names, positions and total compensation amounts:

Joe Solmonese, Executive Director
$226,678

Cathy Nelson, Development Director
$170,330

Cynthia Stachelberg, Legislative Director
$161,936

David M. Smith, Policy Director
$160,060

Cheryl Jacques, Former Executive Director
$159,916

Susanne Salkind, Management Director
$134,482

Andrea Green, Treasurer
$124,933

Kevin Layton, General Counsel
$118,916

Elizabeth Seaton, Legal Director
$111,089

Mary Breslauer, Board Member
$103,000

Timothy Bahr, Major Gifts
$79,456

Mark Shields, Coming Out Project
$77,269

Daryl Herrschaft, Workplace Project
$76,181

Matthew Bayer, Major Gifts
$72,770

This information was culled from the HRC and HRC Foundation IRS 990 reports, which are posted on the HRC site for all to read and I wish to applaud the group for providing this small degree of transparency to their constituency.

2 comments:

Amicus said...

Hi Joe, it's just me here again.

You might consider dropping the names from your list and just listing the positions. Otherwise it starts to look like a personal attack, a sort of MPetrelis "Dead Pool".

for comparison purposes, you may also want to look at figures, of GMHC, Lamda Legal, GLSEN.

Anonymous said...

I think that the real story here is ,like all executive pays throughout the last 25 years, how ridiculously high the wages have risen. I find it especially appalling where this has happened in Not-for-Profits.

I have worked for a few not-for-profits and there is almost always a HUGE income disparity between the executives and the folks who are doing most of the work at the bottom.