My Nonprofit Reviews

As a consumer, volunteer, and board member of a local chapter, I agreed with the rest of the board to leave the national Alzheimer's Association 5 years ago. We did this in order to continue local services to surrounding rural & low-income areas. For it was then that the national Alzheimer's Association board, over much local objection, started requiring 40% of unrestricted income for themselves.
At that time they had already had their very expensive Gold Coast of Chicago corporate office to house their several dozen employees. We were shocked that CEO Johns then received more than $1 million/year in total compensation. Research showed that if you eliminate hospital CEO's and university presidents, $1 MILLION was already way out of line for non-profits who supervised so few staff.
But, in 2012 Mr. Johns' compensation had incredibly raised to $2.8 MILLION per year. That increase makes his pay package one of the fastest growing for nonprofits in the nation. In addition, there are now other additional staff in the national headquarters being paid over $1 MILLION per year.
The national now says that they had to reduce research dollars and increase salaries because they "had to take over operations for nearly 30 chapters since 2005. That means incorporating ... millions of dollars for salaries, travel expenses and other costs previously borne by those affiliates."
So their national fundraising staff in their hard-to-find Madison office is probably being counted as one of those 30 chapters that they just "had to take over". What the national staff does from their Madison outpost with no local accountability is to compete with the real service provider of 35 years, our Alzheimer & Dementia Alliance of WI. Their starting up another office under our former name caused great confusion and competition by scheduling fundraising walks close to ours and pretending they were us. They even had our mail forwarded to them and kept our emails until they got caught doing this. In hindsight, we should have had a no competition and no use of our name clause in our settlement with the national. But we did not expect the national to to be so ruthless.
If you want to assure quality services at the local level support your local chapter or independent organization. ​
For now the national headquarters demands that by 1-15-2015 all its 54 remaining local chapters must sign on to an Agreement called a "Mission Forward" to stay in good standing. Under that Agreement the local chapters would cease hiring their staff, would terminate their separate corporation, and would send 100% of funds they raise to the national headquarters. Many remaining chapters mock this approach, calling it a "Mission Forgotten."
Truly, to achieve better cognitive health we need to engage whole families and whole communities at the local level. We need to change our local cultures to connect all our differing abilities toward public health and well-being. We need our powerful "Mission Remembered".

I was an active volunteer and board member in my local chapter. Then the celebrity national board decided to force our local chapters to send half of the money we worked hard to raise locally to their national office. That office pays over $ 1 million executive compensation and also rents highest priced office space available in Cicago. This caused many locals to layoff direct service staff. At least three former chapters have had to leave the National organization in order to provide high quality local services. And they have been treated with revenge by the National. But they are continuing to provide excellent services and even contribute to research without the overhead reduction the National applies.
Do check the latest guidestar salary comparisons, but remember there are lots of add-ons and benefits.

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