Salaries for a number of leaders of Christian nonprofit ministries reached into the six- and seven-figure vary from 2019 to 2021, in line with a examine launched Thursday by MinistryWatch, a transparency and accountability advocacy group.
Warren Cole Smith, the group’s govt director, mentioned itemizing the salaries — based mostly on knowledge reported to the Inner Income Service and launched to the general public — will help donors resolve whether or not a given charity is a worthy donation recipient.
The survey revealed former lawmaker J.C. Watts Jr., a four-term Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma, acquired $1.8 million in 2019 from Feed The Youngsters, a Christian nonprofit in Oklahoma Metropolis.
Experiences indicated the cash was a settlement of a wrongful termination lawsuit Mr. Watts introduced following his departure because the charity’s CEO and president in 2016 after 9 months on the job.
Feed The Youngsters mentioned that in its 2021 fiscal yr, the nonprofit distributed roughly 98.9 million kilos of meals and important provides, reaching 10 million folks worldwide. In 2021, the group raised $582.3 million and paid its present CEO, Travis Arnold, $381,792.00 in wage and different compensation.
MinistryWatch, which mentioned it surveyed salaries reported by 4,000 nonprofits, famous that District-based American Heart for Regulation and Justice paid Thomas P. Monaghan, its senior counsel and secretary-treasurer $564,829 in 2021; and vice chairman Frank Manion $472,995. Alliance Defending Freedom, a public curiosity regulation agency, paid president/CEO Michael Farris $503,909 in 2021 and founder Alan Sears $485,633 that yr.
Harry Hargrave, CEO of the Museum of the Bible, additionally within the District, acquired a 2021 wage of $503,909, MinistryWatch reported.
Salaries at Christian ministries and different nonprofits are typically public data as soon as a tax-exempt group recordsdata its annual Type 990 with the Inner Income Service. The shape is a monetary data disclosure that’s made accessible to the general public.
Nonetheless, there’s a enormous IRS processing backlog relating to Type 990 filings, which is why MinistryWatch and different monitoring teams are solely now surveying knowledge from 2019 and 2020, an official on the nonprofit mentioned.
Church buildings and different homes of worship are exempt from the general public disclosure requirement. A number of Christian ministries, together with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Affiliation, The Navigators, Gideons Worldwide, and Joyce Meyer Ministries, have elected to be recognized as church buildings, Ministry Watch mentioned.
Different megachurches comparable to these led by televangelists Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn and Creflo Greenback, additionally don’t launch tax-related filings, the group mentioned.
Mr. Smith mentioned govt salaries at nonprofit Christian ministries ought to matter to the general public that helps the organizations.
“Donors to Christian ministries or any nonprofit group ought to care the place the cash goes,” he mentioned.
He mentioned the group doesn’t “make worth judgments about how a lot is an excessive amount of, or how a lot is just too little” relating to salaries. “We’re not saying that every one ministry leaders ought to work for a pittance,” he mentioned. “We expect that they need to be paid appropriately to their ability stage,” he mentioned.
Generally, uncooked numbers for a nonprofit don’t inform the entire story.
For instance, David Cerullo of Inspiration Ministries in Indian Land, South Carolina — made $7.3 million in 2019, a wage survey by nonprofit watchdog group MinistryWatch revealed Thursday.
Christian nonprofit Inspiration Ministries owns the for-profit INSP cable channel, which in line with Selection journal notched 778,000 viewers in 2022. That’s about double the viewership of Recreation Present Community and roughly 3 times that of Comedy Central.
INSP says it’s advertiser-supported, and the 2019 IRS submitting for Inspiration Ministries signifies the majority of Mr. Cerullo’s compensation, $5.7 million, got here as “compensation from associated organizations,” the for-profit cable channel. The ministry Mr. Cerullo heads paid him $1.5 million in wage for 2019 and totaled $41 million in donations and different income that yr.
In 2019, Inspiration Ministries normal counsel and company secretary Dale D’Ardizzone acquired $2.3 million in compensation from the cable channel paid by the nonprofit, putting him second on the MinistryWatch listing.
Melissa Thornton, a spokesperson for Inspiration Ministries and the INSP community, mentioned by way of electronic mail, “As famous within the Ministry Watch report, David Cerullo, and the vast majority of different people recognized as being related to Inspiration Ministries, are literally employed by and obtain their compensation from a for-profit subsidiary. Lower than 2% of David Cerullo’s revenue is from ministry-related actions.”
Mr. Smith acknowledged “setting an applicable wage for a nonprofit chief is troublesome” and that working “massive, complicated organizations” might require a better wage.
Ed Fry, a veteran of the nonprofit business and president of FaithSearch Companions, which recruits management within the sector, mentioned the complexity of working a given charity would possibly dictate the extent of compensation.
“The extra complicated the group, the extra apt the group goes to wish somebody with a singular set of expertise, even perhaps coming from a for-profit setting, the place the wage scale is far more aggressive,” Mr. Fry mentioned. “The warfare for expertise or the competitors for expertise between non for revenue and for-profit organizations is there. And it’s one in all many components utilized in pretty and appropriately compensating leaders.”
