I just don't donate to anything anymore. So many non-profits and charities are total scams that it pulls down the whole space.

When you have cancer and missing children charities giving 2% to their cause and spending the remainder on bullshit it is trivial to make your charity not look as bad.

If you really dig into it, a huge % of charity money is just funding the insiders travel and lifestyle in the name of "fund raising".

This payout is nothing on a relative basis compared to other non-profits and that is the real issue.

I take your approach to large charities, but not small ones. I feel comfortable donating to small locally run charities for which I can personally observe their works. Particularly, my local volunteer fire department. I can see what they're buying (they show it off proudly) and talk with the people who actually do the work there, so I feel that I can trust them to use the money wisely. Sure as hell, nobody there is getting 6-figure severance payments...

Gonna go ahead and plug https://www.givewell.org/ here, since they do an obscene amount of research to verify the cost-efficacy and trustworthiness of all the charities they funnel money to.

People freed from the shackles of ethics taking as much as they can get? Who cares if they deserve it? /s Not a crime, only grifters griftin along, same old.

Sorry for the negativity, feeling bitter about it.

It seems to me that they have lots of cash available and are financially able to “do the right thing.”

Firing people is not fun and is emotionally difficult. I would love to give 1.5x salary but there’s usually some controller restricting me to something I don’t like but can’t change.

Wikimedia doesn’t have a duty to maximize shareholder equity and they have tons of money, so they can. I wonder what else they spend similarly on.

I typically donate to wikimedia and behavior like this makes me rethink. How many more people need to donate to allow these people their money?

Were they fired, made redundant, or otherwise "let go"? My assumption is that severance is only paid under such circumstances, but, as the grandparent poster points out, the linked article makes it sound like they chose to leave for new jobs.

It isn't like the org makes a decision to give them severance after they announce their resignation. It gets written into their contract from the beginning. The reason why organizations offer large severance packages is to attract good candidates. At good companies, even junior devs get severance. In good times, it's a good thing to do. Wouldn't you be more likely to take a job if you knew that no matter what happened, you would have a nice severance package to help you find your next position?

Also, there is bloat in non-profits, but it isn't like everything is done by volunteers. Volunteers don't run the servers, they don't handle donation processing, they don't respond to lawsuits from people upset about how they are portrayed on Wikipedia. Then all those employees need HR, IT, janitors, etc., and then there are executives who run the organization.