[Foundation-l] Corporate Social Responsibility

[Ryan Kaldari]

A couple quick points:
* Average rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,282/month. If you 
exclude the neighborhoods where you're likely to get shot, it's more 
like $2500-$3000.
* I believe "Salary and other compensation" includes payment to 
contractors, of which we currently have about 20-30 (which aren't 
counted as employees).

If you factor those in you may understand why I spend over 50% of my 
paycheck on rent, commute 45 minutes to work, drive a car from 1973, and 
eat microwave burritos. Either that or my "western, capitalist, 
materialist and proprietary cultural bias" has gone seriously haywire :)

Ryan Kaldari

On 11/20/10 4:16 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
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>> On 19/11/2010 21:31, Risker wrote:
>>      
>>> The last one is for the fiscal year ending June 2009, and was filed on
>>> 29
>>> April 2010. Link:
>>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/54/WMF_2008_2009_Form_990.pdf
>>>
>>> The section on salaries begins on Page 7.
>>>        
>> Thank you for the links. I'm consulting the 990 form for 2008-2009 right
>> now [1]. Sadly, I already have questions:
>>
>> Item 15 of page 1 says:
>> Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits:
>> Current year (2008-2009): 2,073,313 dollars.
>> (By the way, the annual report states another number: 2,257,621$. Why?)
>> With 26 employees declared at that time, it gives a mean salary of 6645$
>> a month for each employee. Isn't it morally a little high for a
>> non-profit organization and unfair towards the current 80 000 volunteers?
>>
>> Also, at page 7, three major compensations are described:
>> Sue Gardner was compensated 175050$ (equivalent to a monthly 14587$
>> income)
>> Veronique Kessler was compensated 121859$ (equivalent to a monthly
>> 10155$ income)
>> Mike Godwin was compensated 128139$ (equivalent to a monthly 10678$
>> income).
>>
>> I don't live in the USA, but I'm surprised about these numbers. Frank
>> Bauer estimates that they "don't have the money to begin to pay for such
>> services at market rate".
>>
>> The fact that this is legal or traditional is beside my point.
>> Though I'm willing to listen and understand the Foundation's way of
>> thinking, I'd like to express that for the cultural and ethical grounds
>> from where I come, it is unacceptable for someone to profit from
>> volunteers' efforts and from donations aimed at a cause. I'm not saying
>> this is the case, but I would gladly receive insightful answers because
>> I'm currently at loss about what to think of the Foundation.
>>      
> Top law school graduates in the United States are offered salaries in
> that range for their first job. It is a modest salary for highly
> experienced counsel as are the other salaries disclosed.
>
> Fred Bauder
>
>
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