My friend Paul Nicholson urges us to donate to the anti-suicide charity CALM but I fear that I cannot. It is not that I do not consider the cause worthy. For very obvious reasons I do. It is the CEO salary I cannot accept.
The last accounts for CALM are for the period to March 31 2020. I am at a loss why it takes a body which had income that year of c£5 million and spent just under £4 million so long to get last year’s numbers out but I am sure it has a good reason.
In that year the cost to the organisation of its highest paid employee was £221,875.that is more than the cost of the Prime Minister and it is an awful lot of money. Put another way about 6% of what the organization spent was on this one man.
I accept that many CEOs in the charitable sector earn an awful lot of money and CALM might argue that its boss is actually not that well paid compared to his peers. But that sort of salary for a charity with income of only £5 million despite having a raft of celeb backers seems steep. And it is a hell of a lot more than I – or 99% of the population – earn. Charity should be about supporting good causes not fat cats. The only fat cat I support is the one who catches rats here at the Welsh Hovel, Quincey
Sorry Paul, I have to pass. The best paid chap at the charity I will again raise £50,000+ for this summer with a 34 mile walk, earns less than £25,000 a year! I shall be getting out my own begging bowl for Woodlarks, once again,in a few weeks as I start to ramp upmy own training for this year’s walk.