Petrelis Files

Who's the Highest Paid AIDS Executive at $430K in Compensation?

(Credit: Jeff Elkins, Washingtonian Magazine.)

Every year, when the hot-meals AIDS nonprofit Food and Friends has filed its latest IRS 990, I receive a friendly note from their board secretary Mike Bento informing me the tax filing is now on their site and he also includes a PDF version for me. I much appreciate this favor and highly praise Food and Friends for posting seven years of 990s on their site. Compare that transparency with Freedom to Marry, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the LA Gay & Lesbian Community Center, three groups that refuse to share any 990s on their sites.

However, such transparency does nothing to negate the outrageously high amount of pay at the Washington, DC, area nonprofit.

The 2012 filing for Food and Friends shows that executive director Craig Shniderman, pictured, was compensated $430,000 for his services and the revenue was pegged at $7.9 million. As far as I can determine, after looking at the 990s for other AIDS service and research organizations, Shniderman's compensation makes him the highest paid AIDS executive director in America.

Compare his $430,000 pay with what Kevin Frost the executive director at AmFAR, the AIDS research nonprofit, is compensated. For the same time period, Frost received $415,000 and AmFAR's revenue was $27.1 million, according to their latest 990 on their site.

I asked Mike Bento for further explanation about Shniderman's compensation and he replied:

We do a five year contract with Craig in which we set a compensation level and increases based on a market study that looks at comparable non profits by size, budget, staff, and volunteers – that looks in the DC area, and at similar AIDS service orgs nationwide.  So we’d look at Gods Love, but probably not at AmFar.  We’d look at Whitman Walker (if they disclosed…..) but not as much at HRC for instance.

In 2011, Craig voluntarily didn’t take the 4% increase he was contracted for because the economy was tight and we weren’t able to give the rest of the staff a 4% increase.  In 2012 as things improved and we were able to budget increases for the entire staff Craig did come back up near the contract, but because of his voluntary give-backs, is still under the total comp level the contract authorized. 

Bottom line, it’s a lot of money.  He’s a highly paid executive.  He’s also a very high performing executive.  Name me another AIDS org ED that you’d recommend we trade him for?   

I’m only sort of kidding with that.  We look around the country, see folks struggling, see how they’ve disengaged from the gay community, and see them moving away from serving people living with AIDS, and we are pretty proud of that we’ve stayed true to our roots, to our community, and to our clients.

My bottom line is that the executive director of Food and Friends is making too much money, his compensation could be cut and the money redirected to improve and expand hot-meals and other nutritional needs for people living with AIDS and other clients of the organization.