How to … Attract the Kind of Government Attention You Don’t Want

Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t: The nonprofit leadership crisis exists, in part, because the next generation of leaders sees a bleak future in terms of personal compensation and is leaving the sector for greener pastures. Meanwhile, salaries for nonprofit hospital executives are so high that a Massachusetts legislator has proposed reining them in because, well, it’s politically expedient to target people who make good money. Okay, here’s state Senator Mark C. Montigny’s on-the-record rationale:

"You’ve got executives in the SouthCoast Hospitals group that [are] making millions of dollars in salaries and then are crying poverty to the Legislature," said Montigny, who cited numerous hospitals in the Boston area where executive figures top the salary lists. "These are charities that don’t pay property tax or corporate excise taxes, and in many cases get more in tax benefits than they do in benefits given back to the community in the form of free care. They should be held to higher scrutiny, because in the end it’s taxpayers paying for that."

Laugh all you want at Montigny’s tortured reasoning, but nonprofits in general, and nonprofit hospitals in particular, need to do a better job at two things: First, communicating to the government and the public the extent of their charitable services, and second, explaining that nonprofit leadership is no different than for-profit leadership in that landing talent demands a financial commitment. The less the sector can do these things, the more it will attract attention from cherry-picking media outlets and legislators with time on their hands. | 501(c)

Tags: nonprofit salaries, Mark Montigny, Massachusetts legislature