English
Estonian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Polish
Romanian
Russian
Ukrainian
Salaries for several leaders of Christian nonprofit ministries reached into the six- and seven-figure range from 2019 to 2021, according to a study released Thursday by MinistryWatch, a transparency and accountability advocacy group.
Warren Cole Smith, the group’s executive director, said listing the salaries — based on data reported to the Internal Revenue Service and released to the public — can help donors decide whether a given charity is a worthy donation recipient.
The survey revealed former lawmaker J.C. Watts Jr., a four-term Republican member of Congress from Oklahoma, received $1.8 million in 2019 from Feed The Children, a Christian nonprofit in Oklahoma City.
Reports indicated the money was a settlement of a wrongful termination lawsuit Mr. Watts brought following his departure as the charity’s CEO and president in 2016 after nine months on the job.
Feed The Children said that in its 2021 fiscal year, the nonprofit distributed approximately 98.9 million pounds of food and essential supplies, reaching 10 million people worldwide. In 2021, the group raised $582.3 million and paid its current CEO, Travis Arnold, $381,792.00 in salary and other compensation.
MinistryWatch, which said it surveyed salaries reported by 4,000 nonprofits, noted that District-based American Center for Law and Justice paid Thomas P. Monaghan, its senior counsel and secretary-treasurer $564,829 in 2021; and vice president Frank Manion $472,995. Alliance Defending Freedom, a public interest law firm, paid president/CEO Michael Farris $503,909 in 2021 and founder Alan Sears $485,633 that year.
Harry Hargrave, CEO of the Museum of the Bible, also in the District, received a 2021 salary of $503,909, MinistryWatch reported.
Salaries at Christian ministries and other nonprofits are generally public knowledge once a tax-exempt organization files its annual Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service. The form is a financial information disclosure that’s made available to the public.
However, there is a huge IRS processing backlog regarding Form 990 filings, which is why MinistryWatch and other monitoring groups are only now surveying data from 2019 and 2020, an official at the nonprofit said.
Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from the public disclosure requirement. Several Christian ministries, including the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, The Navigators, Gideons International, and Joyce Meyer Ministries, have elected to be identified as churches, Ministry Watch said.
Other megachurches such as those led by televangelists Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn and Creflo Dollar, also do not release tax-related filings, the group said.
Mr. Smith said executive salaries at nonprofit Christian ministries should matter to the public that supports the organizations.
“Donors to Christian ministries or any nonprofit organization should care where the money goes,” he said.
He said the group doesn’t “make value judgments about how much is too much, or how much is too little” regarding salaries. “We’re not saying that all ministry leaders should work for a pittance,” he said. “We think that they should be paid appropriately to their skill level,” he said.
Sometimes, raw numbers for a nonprofit don’t tell the complete story.
For example, David Cerullo of Inspiration Ministries in Indian Land, South Carolina — made $7.3 million in 2019, the MinistryWatch survey revealed Thursday.
Christian nonprofit Inspiration Ministries owns the for-profit INSP cable channel, which according to Variety magazine notched 778,000 viewers in 2022. That’s about double the viewership of Game Show Network and roughly three times that of Comedy Central.
INSP says it is advertiser-supported, and the 2019 IRS filing for Inspiration Ministries indicates the bulk of Mr. Cerullo’s compensation, $5.7 million, came as “compensation from related organizations,” the for-profit cable channel. The ministry Mr. Cerullo heads paid him $1.5 million in salary for 2019 and totaled $41 million in donations and other revenue that year.
In 2019, Inspiration Ministries general counsel and corporate secretary Dale D’Ardizzone received $2.3 million in compensation from the cable channel paid by the nonprofit, placing him second on the MinistryWatch list.
Melissa Thornton, a spokesperson for Inspiration Ministries and the INSP network, said via email, “As noted in the Ministry Watch report, David Cerullo, and the majority of other individuals identified as being associated with Inspiration Ministries, are actually employed by and receive their compensation from a for-profit subsidiary. Less than 2% of David Cerullo’s income is from ministry-related activities.”
Mr. Smith acknowledged “setting an appropriate salary for a nonprofit leader is difficult” and that running “large, complex organizations” may require a higher salary.
Ed Fry, a veteran of the nonprofit industry and president of FaithSearch Partners, which recruits leadership in the sector, said the complexity of running a given charity might dictate the level of compensation.
“The more complex the organization, the more apt the organization is going to need someone with a unique set of skills, perhaps even coming from a for-profit environment, where the wage scale is much more competitive,” Mr. Fry said. “The war for talent or the competition for talent between non for profit and for-profit organizations is there. And it’s one of many factors used in fairly and appropriately compensating leaders.”
