[patejam]

That's assuming the five CEOs aren't going to go after the same $1million each. A more talented CEO might be able to bring in new streams of money.

Y'all are bringing up a ton of hypotheticals that don't matter to my main point: Talent costs money. The optimal end result may end up spending a lot of money on that talent to bring in the most amount of money.

This includes hiring an agency to run a fun run (the original scenario) when having it be run by amateurs might end up with it failing for a million reasons (low turnout, insufficient staffing, etc).

[triceratops]

"Talent costs money"

And yet that argument is never made to justify paying line-workers more. Non-profits often pay regular workers less than public sector or private sector jobs because "the mission is the reward". Shouldn't the same apply to non-profit leadership?

[patejam]

>And yet that argument is never made to justify paying line-workers more.

This isn't an argument to "justify paying the leadership more". That's backwards. This is an argument to say that when you're a board member trying to fill a leadership role, it might be worth it to spend a good amount of money to bring in people who would otherwise never take the role.

If you want a line-worker argument, it's similar to when people start trying to outsource software work to cheap firms and are then surprised when the results aren't satisfactory. Bring in line workers (software workers in this case) who cost more but are better and you might have better end results.

You shouldn't just pay the outsourcing firm more money and expect better results. In the same way you shouldn't "justify paying the leadership more", you should find leadership who are worth more money.

In both cases, it's possible you find the holy grail of someone wiling to work for the cause for little money and are also talented, but it's much more difficult.

[triceratops]

> work for the cause for little money

I never said "little money". Leadership roles signify high status, so you have to pay an upper-middle-class or upper class salary for the area.

But is it not fair to assume that nearly everyone who cares more about the money and is talented enough to take a leadership role, has already gone to the private sector? A desirable CEO candidate determined to stay in the non-profit world is far more likely to look at whether the org excites them, than how much it's paying (again, as long as it's an upper-middle to upper class salary).

For line workers it really may just be a paycheck.

[DonHopkins]

Talent may cost money, and there are a few highly sought after precious examples of those people, but the world is swarming with parasites with absolutely no talent but lots of social standing they want to maintain by being seen as acting charitably (like Trump's failsons), desperately competing with each other to con you out of your money, and that's what you usually end up with.