Friday, August 10, 2012

Griffin's Salary at HRC = $379,000


I just got off the phone with Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign. Long story short, we had a fabulous and frank discussion about a lot of issues, including the rainbow flag problems at Harvey Milk Plaza. We both committed to more communication between us and laid out which each is coming from. When I got off the phone, this substantive reply was waiting to be read.

Previous posts on these matters are here, here and here. Hey Fred, thanks for the info and I'll be in touch!

Thanks for your emails. Our response to your points appears below:

1. Thanks for the question on our 990’s. You make a good point on the labeling of the page. As such, the page has now been relabeled so that it communicates that our 990’s are also posted here. Additionally, HRC has now posted three years of 990’s on this page. You may also be interested to know that we also have 13 years of Annual Reports posted, all of which include Statements of Financial Activity, for both HRC and HRCF. The information provided in these reports is quite comprehensive and clearly indicative of our commitment to transparency.

2. We will post our 2011 990 as soon as it is submitted to the IRS.

3. Chad’s salary is $379,000. Consistent with best practices, our board reviewed compensation surveys that established this compensation as reasonable for the position of HRC president given the necessary job qualifications and the extensive work of the organization. As part of its consideration, the board reviewed data from a number of sources, including data prepared by the American Society of Association Executives. This salary survey found that the median salary of CEO’s heading individual membership organizations with 101 or more staff was $379,317. CEO compensation can also be assessed by comparing the CEO salary to the total budget of the organization they manage. Chad’s salary is .85% of our total FY13 budget. I think if you were to apply this filter to other LGBT organizations, you’d see that we would compare very favorably.

[FYI: The 2010 IRS 990 shows that former director Joe Solmonese that year earned $280,000. -michael.]

4. We are always communicating with our membership, our supporters and the community we serve. We will continue to find ways to better that two-way communication. There is no plan at this time to have a town hall.

2 comments:

Tif said...

The real question is who are the major donors to HRC that are dictating movement strategy, without any open and transparent interface with the community or accountability of any kind. As for salary, we should have the best national political minds available, not another fundraiser. If we were paying James Carville almost 400, 000 a year - I might say - OK - we're paying for a tremendous amount of national campaign experience and a big name. But sadly, this is yet another Obama bundler, with no national campaign experience, who is just a good guy by all accounts that the major donors know they can control and keep in line with the DNC. Big picture, is the same failed MO is unchanged. Top down, insider-only, no national coalition, no transparency as to process or decision making on behalf of the community, and NO DEMAND for FULL FEDERAL EQUALITY backed up by a full fledged national campaign. We should get more for the money, regardless of the calculations and percentages of HRC's wealth.

Stephen R. Stapleton, Sacramento, CA said...

The real problem with HRC's answer is they've bought into this comparable pay scenario. The goal is to pay the least amount that actually persuades the fellow to take the job, not make pay him equally to other positions that may or may not be filled with people of similar qualifications.

If Chip would take on the task of being Exec. Dir. of HRC for $100,000, paying him more than a third of a million dollars is excessive.