It has come to my attention through excellent books such as Green, Inc. and recent articles such as ‘The Wrong Kind of Green‘ that many major environmental groups have a seriously out-of-whack pay scale for their senior management.

Before addressing the title to this post, I’d like to say a few words about this problem.

First, it is one thing (and not necessarily a good one by any means) that corporations pay their top management now often in the millions of dollars each year.  But why on earth would environmental groups – which do not answer to shareholders or investors and are not charged with ‘return on investment’ or even worse – ‘maximizing profit’ following suit?  It seems to me that for every senior mgmt person you pay an exorbitant salary to – that amount otherwise equals the pay of several scientists or staff people, or, notably affects your ability to support the activities of volunteers and grassroots activism – which while often not paid, still requires funding and possibly significant funding in most cases.  How is the pay and productivity/output of one person, or even a small team of them, equal in value to the rest?  Simple answer – it is not.  Even if you employed celebrities directly (instead of simply working with them as largely  in-kind donors) it is hard, if not impossible, to believe that the net overall effect of the celebrity’s activity is going to benefit the organization (and its ultimate purpose) in the long term vs essential staff, scientists and activists.

Second, it is simply inconsistent with the values and the mission(s) of an environmental organization (if not completely hypocritical) to say one thing to raise money from individual and other donors, and then act like (and receive the pay of) a corporate CEO in practice funded by that same money?

Third – yes, the cost of living is rising in most major metropolitan areas in this country and elsewhere.  And yes, the majority of the population (and donor pool) lives in those same cities, and an environmental organization has to survive financially to carry out its mission – as do its employees and staff.  But to pay someone beyond a reasonable salary in the several hundreds of thousands is simply beyond the needs of anyone even in the most expensive markets in this country, if they really believe in what they are doing and what it stands for.

Which brings us to the ultimate point of this post and the beginning of an effort.  Over the coming months, a detailed, comprehensive list of environmental groups big and small will be developed here, and show who is getting paid what amount and where they work.  It is patently clear that none of them need to be making more (or much more, anyway) than $100,000 per year.  And we’re going to show who is paying those crazy >$100K salaries, and contrast with who puts their activism and funding where it belongs instead – funding programs, science, land acquisition, wetland, lake, river/ocean protetction, and the like.

Stay tuned.

Chloro Phil