We haven’t heard the next barrage of fireworks from the tiff among the Cleveland Foundation, the Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future but I’m wondering how much big salaries have to do with the Cleveland Foundation’s desire for more control.
The Cleveland Foundation has sliced its hefty contribution to the Fund and says it will give individually to some of the same entities funded through the Fund for Our Economic Future.
Apparently, a major issue is where resources should be most concentrated. Cleveland Foundation suggests Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is its major concern. The Fund apparently wants to focus more outside those confines to a larger northeast Ohio area.
The issue has became fodder for the Plain Dealer recently and today’s paper has three letters to the editor on the matter.
The issue seems to be one of control. The Cleveland Foundation has given some one-third of the Fund’s budget annually but it has only one vote of 70 since each contributor giving $100,000 a year gets an equal vote. The foundation has cut its usually $3 to $4 million grant to a $100,000, the entry fee for a vote.
I looked at one of the funding recipients for money going to the Fund – JumpStart, Inc., a venture capital entity - and the salaries at least to me are rather shocking.
The top ten employees of Jumpstart received in salaries and benefits in the 2007-08 report, latest available, to the Internal Revenue Service $1,871,354.
The top salary went to Ray Leach, President and CEO, at $369,311 with contributions to his benefits of $34,260, or a total of $403,571.
Other top salaries went this way:
- Rebecca Braun, Chief operating officer, $178,981 with $42,359 in benefits.
- Lynn-Ann Gries, Chief investment officer, $161,482 and $42,359 in benefits.
- Dawn Redus, Chief Economic Inclusion officer, $153,397 with $37,560 in benefits.
- Richard Jankura, Chief financial officer, $143,121.
- Jerold Frantz, manager, $143,273 and $35,772 in benefits.
- Kevin Mendelsohn, Entrepreneur in residence, $120,524 with $19,297 in benefits.
- Kerri Breen, Vice president, finance, $105,837 with $19,297 in benefits.
- Tiffan Clark, Vice President, marketing, $89,126 with $21,556 in benefits.
- Remsen Harris, investment associate, $88,205 and $34,821 in benefits.
Pension benefits seem to have become an issue for the Plain Dealer as they take after public employees. I’d suggest that they look at this benefit packages for non-profit executives. They make the benefits to public employees seem rather skimpy. Especially when one sees the salaries bestowed upon executives of non-profits. But fair isn’t one of the attributes of our news media.
You can read about JumpStart here: http://www.jumpstartinc.org/ForDonors/ [1]
And here’s a link to the kind of positive promotion JumpStart gets from the news media: http://blog.jumpstartinc.org/index.php/archives/117 [2]
Here’s a link to Ed Morrison’s take that offers some good information at Brewed Fresh Daily:
http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2010/whats-next-for-the-future-fund-and-the-cleveland-foundation [3]
Unfortunately, private and even non-profit organizations are not as open to public scrutiny as public agencies. They don’t have to be so they aren’t too forthcoming. That’s why there should be more attention by the news media to philanthropic organizations than there typically is.
Links:
[1] http://www.jumpstartinc.org/ForDonors/
[2] http://blog.jumpstartinc.org/index.php/archives/117
[3] http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/2010/whats-next-for-the-future-fund-and-the-cleveland-foundation
[4] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/blog/roldo/judging-the-pd-editor-goldberg
[5] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/content/roldo-bartimole-0
[6] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/content/k-d-out-county-developer