Before everyone gets their hackles up over how much money California’s top-compensated nonprofit executives earn, some context is in order.
The highest-paid chief executive in the for-profit world was Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. He pulled in $226 million in total comp in 2022, according to the research firm Equilar, on revenue of $280 billion.
Then there was Live Action Entertainment head Michael Rapino, who had total comp of $139 million on revenue of $16.7 billion.
The nonprofit world, by and large, is far more circumspect than this, even though running a large nonprofit — especially the healthcare behemoths that dominate the top-paid nonprofit executives list — demands very similar skill sets. Still, when you see some of these numbers, the relationship between revenue, complexity and top comp at some nonprofits can raise a few eyebrows.
The highest-paid nonprofit exec in California was the CEO of Dignity Health, Lloyd H. Dean, which has locations all over California, according to data filed with the IRS and compiled by ProPublica. “As an affiliate of Commonspirit Health, Dignity Health is committed to making the healing presence of God known in our work by improving the health of the people we serve, especially those who are vulnerable, while we advance social justice for all,” its latest tax filing says.
Dean’s total compensation was $35.5 million, on revenue of $9.5 billion.
That’s more than twice the compensation of the next closest nonprofit CEO, Gregory Adams of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, even though Adams heads an organization many, many times larger than Dignity. Adams’ total comp was $15.6 million, on total revenue of $68.1 billion. Kaiser’s mission is “to provide high-quality, affordable health care services to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve,” its filing says.
Popping in at No. 3 was Teresa Campbell, CEO and president of the relatively smallish San Diego County…
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