Compensation

 

Historic Perspective

Dr. Daniel and Sharon Williams founded Calvary Ministries International (now Go To Nations) in 1981. In the early days, he served as the president of the ministry and served as a field missionary in Latin America at the same time. During this period, Daniel was responsible for raising his own personal support.

As the ministry grew, it became necessary for Daniel and his family to relocate to Jacksonville, Florida in order for him to carry out his responsibilities as president serving in the World Headquarters. With a growing need to raise funds for the operations of the World Headquarters and overall ministry, Daniel started steering his personal supporters toward supporting the general fund of the ministry. He began receiving a partial salary from the ministry while maintaining a portion of his missionary support.

In 1993, Daniel planted a church in Ponte Vedra, Florida which eventually started to supplement part of his personal income while still receiving a partial salary from the ministry for serving as president. This arrangement to meet his compensation needs continued like this for several years.

In 1998, Daniel informed the board of directors that he would be resigning as president, and the board needed to start the process of selecting his successor. In 1999, Jerry Williamson was approved as president-elect starting a one-year preparation period to take over as the head of the ministry. In June of 2000, Jerry was installed as president.

Since Jerry had been on missionary status with the ministry for several years, he entered his new role as president with a support base of personal ministry partners. It was agreed by the board of directors that Jerry should stay on missionary status and keep his personal supporters since it would be next to impossible to get those people to transfer their giving from Jerry to the general account of the ministry. Then the board of directors established a base salary for the office of president. The purpose of this process was to guarantee that the new president would have an established, steady-level income. The idea was – if Jerry’s personal missionary support was less than the established salary base set by the board, the difference would be made up out of the World Headquarters’ general operations fund.

For several years now, Jerry has been able to raise his own personal support, not receiving any funds from the general account of the World Headquarters. This has allowed the ministry to re-allocate funds that would normally be used for the salary of the president to address other needs. This has been a real blessing to the ministry. But it has also created a challenge when it comes to succession. Because as it stands now – when it comes time to install the next president of the ministry, there is no available salary in the budget to do that. This is an issue that will eventually require attention.

Compensation Process

Determining the president’s salary is an important responsibility. It is the governance committee’s job to determine a salary that is right for the culture and make-up of the ministry along with a fair comparison to similar positions in other organizations.
Intermediate sanctions regulations require boards to be able, if asked, to provide documentation indicating that they looked at a number of sources when researching executive compensation. Below is a checklist of how to look for salaries of chief executives at comparable organizations and things to consider when comparing the president’s salary to one at another similar organization. Factors to take into consideration include budget size, mission area, regional differences, and professional (ministry) experience.

Here are two examples of websites of organizations that survey the salaries of non- profit chief executives:

  • www.abbott-langer.com: Abbot, Langer & Associates collects salary survey statistics for more than 450 jobs from more than 7,000 participating organizations in the public, private, and non-profit sector. Non-profit executive compensation information is included
  • www.guidestar.org: Guidestar is a non-profit organization that is in the process of posting on its website the IRS Forms 990 of non-profits. The Form 990 requests salary information on the highest paid employees at the organization.

One simple suggestion to help make this process easier is to contact other ministries that compare to Go To Nations in scope and size. See how their salaries compare. Make sure that the committee is looking at true comparisons by considering the following:

  • Base salary
  • Insurance policies: life, health, indemnification
  • Contribution to pensions
  • Supplemental benefits
  • Reimbursement for education expenses
  • Number of employees supervised
  • Sabbatical leave
  • Executive expense account
  • Assessment policy
  • Other benefits
    • Car allowance
    • Housing allowance
    • Other:

A compensation assessment should be conducted on an annual basis. Once the governance committee has conducted their assessment the committee submits its recommendations to the board for review. Any change in the compensation of the president must be approved by the board.