This is not and should not be an either/or circumstance, i.e. either you’re in it for sacrifice or you’re in it for the money. The fact that people have a vision for their economic future that might include a second home, sending their kids to private schools, and flying business class does not mean they don’t have love in their hearts or that they are not capable of making valuable contributions to the great causes of our time. Furthermore, the notion that the nonprofit sector already has all of the best and the brightest is short-sighted and perhaps worse.

I have to say, and I say it with respect, that your point of view is a danger to human life. You are essentially saying, “keep things the same.” I am not in favor of it. In fact, I will fight with all my heart and soul to change things. In the last ten years, U.S. breast cancer deaths have stayed the same, global malnutrition has stayed the same, and global AIDS deaths have doubled. Our system is not working. It is not alleviating suffering on the scale or at the pace at which it must be alleviated. As they say in AA, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. The people who will die of AIDS, hunger, breast cancer, MS and everything else while we keep the system the same will surely have a different opinion about the merits of attempting to use compensation as means to stop their suffering.

This has now become a moral issue, and I believe that those who have their heels dug in about sacrifice are on the wrong side of it.

Adequate funding of overhead is, I agree, essential. The idea of competitive compensation nonetheless is a slippery slope; everyone who works in the nonprofit sector makes a personal sacrifice of some sort, and that is part of their contribution to the cause. That principle of sacrifice brings to nonprofit organizations people with a heartfelt commitment to their work, one that can’t be bought at any price.

I’ve seen people join a cause for a paycheck. They don’t last.

My thanks again for your willingness to give voice to differing points of view; your point is well-taken: the worker is worthy of his (or her) hire.

I think that the work that people in the nonprofit sector do is so valuable and important that I think it is a shame that funders and the public at large believe that paying nonprofit employees well is morally unacceptable.

The assumption that people working in the nonprofit sector are second-rate simply because they accept a lower level of cash compensation is really insulting to most of us who’ve done it.

Nonetheless, your argument has its most receptive audience in the nonprofit sector itself, where “competitive adjustments” are employed not to attract a better of class of applicant from the for-profit side but to retain the people who are already working in the sector. This is where it gets funny.

So by this argument, nonprofits can end up paying more for the same people considered second-class under the price-equals-value equation. You’re not getting more for your money, just more of the same.

My point has been that employees of nonprofits should be paid fairly rather than the current situation where the public at large feels that nonprofit employees do not deserve to be paid as well as people who work for a for-profit.

For instance, if Habitat for Humanity wanted to hire a really top notch in house marketing team, they simply could not pay as much as a for-profit company could. I think this hurts Habitat’s ability to attract great people and therefore hurts their ability to do good.

I’m not suggesting that people only work for money. In fact, in both the nonprofit and for-profit space, studies consistently show that people want jobs that offer meaningful work. Many nonprofits offer that (as do many for-profits). But I think our current requirement that nonprofits pay less than for-profits, does nothing but handicap their ability to do good.

The best of philanthropy, and I consider Habitat for Humanity an excellent example of it, seeks to meet human need simply because need exists, not because we’re a guilt-ridden capitalist society or any other twaddle that would spin us off on exhaustive surveys of naval lint that help no one.

But if the suggestion is that the best motivation for philanthropy is that there’s a buck in it, then we have a very serious disagreement indeed.

If you want to make a pot of money, there are faster and easier ways to do it, and God bless you; I don’t mind if you enjoy a high standard of living. I just don’t want to see effective programs that really help people shortchanged so you can have your goodies.

I agree with Sean, no big surprise. You wrote that, “When an organization adopts the values of the culture that is creating need and want, it ceases to be a force in easing those ills.” I disagree that our culture is creating need and want. Need and want are out natural states as Bill Niskanen has stated. There was a great deal more need and want in the world before capitalism showed up. And, I would argue, the fact that there is inequality 400 years post the start of capitalism is not an indictment of capitalism. It is an indictment of a deprivation mentality that has banned capitalism from the eradication of helping the neediest. Capitalism isn’t the problem. The lack of it is.

They sure raised a lot more money than if the non-for-profit ran it. Hell I will even go far out and say, they couldn’t even have created that Brand, and gotten those levels of commitment from corporate support for an “AIDS” event aimed at the glbt community. The agency’s they just couldn’t, I know most of those agency’s and they just couldn’t

The man did good things in this world, for you to continue to terrorize him without really knowing what he did, and how it was different, and how it hasn’t been seen since. IT WAS A VERY GOOD THING..

Been there, seen it. When it becomes more about money than mission, a nonprofit becomes a jobs program for college-educated, white collar professionals who want to be greeted with respect in the marketplace and to be given the best seats in the house.

It’s like setting out fly paper for narcissists, as Dr. Peter Steinke puts it. On such principles was built the poverty industry that Habitat for Humanity’s founder railed against in his lifetime.

When an organization adopts the values of the culture that is creating need and want, it ceases to be a force in easing those ills.