I'll confirm with others, having seen non-profits up close... There tends to be two categories. "Useful idiots" slash "True believers", and then "Making big bucks doing very little". The true believers work at non-profits because they really do believe, tend to get paid little if they're not just volunteers and work very hard. Benefits or fringe benefits can be pretty good, but I've rarely seen True Believers make serious coin.
The brass on the other hand often do believe they are true believers, and that getting a fat paycheck is fine because they deserve it for doing something good and proper. If you asked the board at Wounded Warrior why they were pulling down $300k plus salaries (likely in addition to nice benefits and fringe benefits), they'd say they deserved it for providing their excellent knowledge, leadership, etc. It's entirely subjective, so they're not exactly wrong.
I just prefer to give my money to folks that are effective. For instance, I have no flipping care in the world what the admin overhead is for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). It could be 99.999995% and I'd still keep giving them loot. For organizations that should be distributing cash or supplies, it's obviously different. Red Cross, March of Dimes, etc are known for poor at best ratio of loot to do-gooding.
I'm fine with begging, as annoying as it is. I do think legal and financial transparency is Constitutional as well as a very good idea, as a trade for tax exemption. If you want closed books, pay your taxes and you don't have to tell anyone squat.
