In the charitable sector, making executive-level pay public is all the rage. It happened in Canada a few years ago and news across the pond would indicate that it’s now happening in the UK.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), a UK umbrella organization, is advising charities to publish full details of senior executives’ pay in an effort to maintain public trust. The recommendation comes from a report that pushes charities to go well beyond the current practice of publicly disclosing the number of employees in pay bands over £60,000. More specifically, key points from the report would suggest:

• That charities publish a remuneration statement explaining their pay strategy and stating the individual remuneration of their highest-paid staff by position and name. 
• That charities who have a gross income of more than £500,000 should accompany the remuneration statement with a summary of arguments used by the board of trustees to justify the amounts involved and how they reflect the charity's values.
• That to make this information accessible, and not just buried within their annual accounts, charities should display this information online and no more than two clicks from their homepage.

Recap: How Canadian charities report on executive-level compensation

As a rule, all registered Canadian charities must list compensation information on schedule 3 of their T3010 registered charity information return. Not only is the total compensation amount for all employees shown, charities also have to list specific compensation information for the top ten positions in their organization. Using this information, and a bit of simple math, it is easy to see what the executives at Canadian charities are being paid. For more information, click here.

Access to executive-level compensation

Taking it one step further, here in Canada there are a number of organizations that compile and disclose compensation information—perhaps the most notable being Charity Intelligence Canada. The organization’s website collects compensation information on Canada’s 100 major charities, or those that receive the largest amount of donations from Canadian donors. The information is gleaned from the most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings.

As an example, we can look at compensation information for the Canadian Red Cross (Canada’s largest charity, which received $287 million of donations in 2013). The charity has 1,696 full-time staff with compensation averaging $55,302. Though names and positions are not revealed, the ranges of the top 10 staff salaries break down as follows:

• Two employees receive between $200,000-250,000 in compensation.
• Two employees receive between $160,000-200,000 in compensation.
• Six employees receive between $120,000-160,000 in compensation.

Clearly, recommendations from the NCVO would have charities in the UK go far and above what is expected here in Canada. Perhaps it is just the logical next step charities will have to take to strengthen public trust. What do you think? 

Michelle Jondreau is a communications professional with an avid interest in all things HR. On top of that, she hails from the nonprofit world and as such has a keen understanding of sector trends and issues. Follow her @majondreau.