It drives me crazy when people complain about charity ceo pay. Half a million is a drop in the bucket compared to their actually expenses. If you reduce the ceo pay, you’ll find your ceo leaves every few months because they’re being offered ten times more somewhere else.

If their only incentive for working at a charity was the salary, isn't that perhaps the wrong motivation?

At the end of the day, people still need money and charities need competent people to head their operations. Charities can get away with comparative low pay, and some folks are fine taking a pay cut to work there - but they cannot pay poverty wages and expect someone to stay there either - because at the end of the day, it is still a job and still work. This doesn't change because it is a charity.

That same logic - wrong motivation - can be applied to non-charities. Should doctors and nurses take low pay because they should be motivated to help people instead of focusing on salary? Are teachers wrong for leaving teaching because they aren't paid well, especially at first?

Yeah, that's like high-end city manager pay.