For some inexplicable reason, Tom let our subscription to Air Force Times lapse.

Nonetheless, a Tweet from @nonprofitnews alerted me to an Air Force Times ‘exclusive’. Important in terms of the questions it triggers.

The Agitator never sleeps.

Headlined, Nonprofit CEO Cashing In On Religious Freedom Campaign, the paper breathlessly announced that Michael (‘Mikey‘) Weinstein, CEO of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) fighting for separation of church and state, had been paid a salary equal to 47% of the organization’s income in 2012.

The military weekly, owned by the publishers of USA Today, reported to its 44,000 readers the following:

• Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) paid its CEO $145,000, a bit more than 2% of its $6.1 million income in 2012.

• Wounded Warrior Project paid its CEO $311,538 or 0.2% of the nearly $155 million the charity raised in 2012.

• Yet, Mikey Weinstein’s reported compensation of $273,355 from MRFF was more than double the median compensation for nonprofit CEOs reported by Charity Navigator.

All of which brings us to the question of just how much is a CEO worth? More on my view in a bit. But first let’s let the chorus weigh in.

As expected, Charity Navigator’s chief financial officer and head of marketing jumped in by noting, “I would definitely say the compensation is very high”. No surprise there for an organization that never met an expenditure it didn’t despise.

But what about EFFECTIVENESS? Why do journalists and watchdogs so ignore this? After all, a charity hires a CEO to get results, doesn’t it?

Frankly, if I we could solve climate change by paying the head of Environmental Defense Fund $30 billion a year, count me in.

In 2004, Weinstein founded MRFF in response to what he perceived as the undue influence of “far-right militant radical evangelical religious fundamentalists” within the military.

Throughout the past decade, Weinstein, a ’77 grad of the Air Force Academy, has regularly made headlines for taking on Academy leaders over religious issues.

Here’s what Weinstein claims he’s accomplished:

• Represented Muslim soldiers harassed for their faith.
• Forced the Air Force to adopt an instruction requiring personnel to remain neutral toward religion.
• Getting nativity scenes removed from Air Force bases and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
• Assisted 37,600 clients in total since its founding. He claims MRFF helps 300-600 personnel per month.

In return, Weinstein has won the enmity, among others, of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, who’s blasted him as a “bitter man”, who “receives a huge salary” for “…filing lawsuits against Christians”.

According to Focus on the Family’s IRS 990 filing for 2011, James Daly, the organization’s president, received $265,753 in compensation. Nothing is listed for Dr. Dobson other than noting he sells publications and tapes to the organization at “a discount”.

A lot of time, money and wasted energy is spent on misdirected attention to CEO compensation. The current debate deals — idiotically — with amounts, rather than effectiveness.

These folks are paid to get results! Not to make watchdogs and journalists happy.

This is one of the reasons the nonprofit world is hampered in its growth. The petty concern over its leaders’ wages is so, very, very stupid and myopic.

Of course there are the crooks and charlatans. And they should be called out. (See The Agitator’s Graft is Graft.)

Nonetheless some traditionalists remain fixated on compensation as though it’s predictive of something important. So,  if you’re one of those who’s interested in wage comparisons and not results, take a look at the 2013 Compensation Study published by Charity Navigator. Their CEO was paid $162,000 on an income of  $2.5 million in 2012.

I for one believe that the focus on what the CEO is paid, as opposed to what she/he produces, is absolute nonsense. As Warren Buffet notes, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

What do you think?

Roger