July 24, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
Charities and foundations tend to have different philosophies about the practice of board pay, studies have found.
Of 75 foundations surveyed by BoardSource last year, 13 percent paid board members an honorarium, but only 1 percent of 857 charities did. BoardSource is a Washington group that helps nonprofits improve their governance.
A study by the Council on Foundations and the Foundation Center found a big difference between community foundations, organizations that raise and distribute money, and foundations created by a single donor or family.
Sixty percent of 138 independent foundations reported board compensation, compared with only 1.4 percent of community foundations.
Big differences in pay exist among foundations, another study finds.
A study released in 2008 by the Foundation Center, GuideStar, and the Urban Institute found that of 10,000 foundations tracked over three years, more than a quarter, or 2,571, compensated board members in at least one of the three years. Larger foundations were more likely to pay their board members than smaller ones, the study found. Foundations that didn’t compensate board members had median assets of $5.2-million, while foundations that compensated trustees had median assets of $10.3-million.
