I don't know about Jim Elliott, but all the other figures quoted are BS. This false spam email has been going around for almost 10 years. That's not to say that the CEOs of various charities don't receive high salaries, or that Diveheart is not a worthy cause. It's just that I hate inaccuracy being spread.
Thanks for raising this. It's late and I was bored, so I pulled the most recent (available) 990s. Note, because of tax reporting extensions, some are 2013 while others are 2014. You'll notice many of the CEO names don't match those above.
2013 American Red Cross CEO Gayle McGovern: 562K
2014 GoodWill Industries International, CEO James Gibbons CEO: 565K
2013 UNICEF CEO
Caryl Stem: 521K
2013 UnitedWay Worldwide CEO Brian Gallagher 764K plus 322K (from an affiliated org/subsidiary)
But these are massive and complex organizations and the numbers don't tell you much. I pulled out a recent regional nonprofit compensation study and got the following averages. This is San Francisco Bay Area specific which is a very expensive place to live and it has relatively relatively high income. Obviously compensation in other parts of the country would be even lower.
The average pay for a NP Executive Director or CEO for organizations with a budget less than 500K is about 72K.
The average pay for a NP Executive Director or CEO for organizations with a budget more than 15 Million is about 169K
I agree that DiveRight may be doing great work. They should have told me about that work and maybe shared stories about what they've accomplished. That is a better route to a donor's heart (and wallet).