Big salaries at Goodwill

If you told me the head of Goodwill Industries International was making more than $800,000 a year to run the non-profit, I might have raised an eyebrow. But it's a multi-million-dollar enterprise, so I probably wouldn't have given it much more thought.

If you told me the head of Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette (the Portland-area chapter, GICW for short) was pulling in that kind of salary, I probably would have said that was too high, and would have given serious consideration to supporting other charities such as the Salvation Army.

But the beauty of that statement lies in who makes the decision. If I don't like the actions by Goodwill, I can take my support elsewhere. Instead, we have the state attorney general's office sticking its nose into the mix, conducting an audit to decide what the chief executive at GICW should be earning. According to The Oregonian story, federal laws and regulations allow nonprofits to compensate their executives based on pay at similar nonprofit or for-profit companies.

I would be in favor of forcing non-profits to publish its salaries (particularly at the executive level) so the public can make an informed decision about its charitable giving. But I don't like the idea of Hardy Myers taking the role as Chief of Compensation. That should be a market-driven decision.