April 23, 2001

9:37 AM

Just in time for Earth Day. A colleague forwarded this to me with the subject line "Sac. Bee does expose' on eco-movement!!!", but it doesn't read entirely like that. There's the obligatory "Look how much their CEOs make!" (pdf) as well as a Philanthropic Report Card, rating groups on how much of their budget is spent on a "charitable" purpose. That's the contentious eye candy -- there's also some decent writing. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the week's stories.
posted by dcehr (2 comments total)

If you want to find out more about nonprofit organizations check out their 990 forms at GuideStar. Some people will find this very useful when trying to decide to make donations.
posted by terrapin at 10:30 AM on April 23, 2001

I was a Bee reporter myself 10 years ago; now I'm a professional environmental activist. I've been reading "Environment Inc." and while I agree with a lot it says about high salaries at some of the biggest groups and hype-filled direct mail from membership organizations, he's unfairly tarring the whole movement with his broad brush. The vast majority of environmental non-profits struggle to make the rent and overhead and pay creative, dedicated activists far less than what they could make in the corporate world. If you took the yearly budgets of the 10 big groups targeted by the Bee, the total is about what a mulitnational chemical company spends per hour, so to say that the environmental movement "has become big business" is misleading.
posted by deadline at 1:34 PM on April 24, 2001