This is another edition of Inklings, where we explore all things aid and aid-adjacent unfolding in humanitarian hubs, on the front lines of emergency response, or in the dark corners of NGO financial statements.
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Also today: Big salary comparisons, money-making crises, and a list of more things blocked from Gaza.
On the radar|
More on the IRC budget cuts: The International Rescue Committee will make significant staff cuts after a surprise budget shortfall, as we reported this week. IRC leaders blame a mix of rising costs, lower-than-expected revenue from private fundraising, and poor budgeting and forecasting practices for a deficit that has reached at least $50 million this year. But some IRC staff say it’s part of a larger problem that stretches to leadership accountability, vision, and the organisation’s very purpose. Here are a few takeaways:
Big crises make money: It’s no secret that global aid groups rely on headline-news emergencies to raise money – just have a peek at who’s fundraising off Gaza. But linking crises and profitability so explicitly still feels jarring, such as in a March email that IRC chief David Miliband wrote to senior leaders to explain the financial pressure: “There have been headwinds facing private fundraising and meanwhile no humanitarian emergency that has significantly buoyed our unrestricted income since the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” he wrote.
Salaries are a lightning rod: Aid salaries and spending will always be tabloid fodder. But Miliband’s earnings in particular have long been the subject of chatter for reporters, aid workers, and even other aid leaders. A high salary with budget cuts gets you back in the Daily Mail – and sparks staff anger. According to US tax filings, Miliband made about $1.25 million in 2022. This included an $818,000 base salary, $150,000 in bonuses, and a $50,000 housing allowance. At least nine other senior staff earned at least $370,000 in total compensation that year, according to the IRC filing. An ad for a new chief financial officer, posted earlier this year, listed a salary range of $400,000 to $475,000.
Everyone making north of $200,000 was scheduled to take temporary pay cuts until October, we reported.Asked to comment about the critique on Miliband’s salary, the IRC said in a statement: “Under David Miliband's leadership, the International Rescue Committee has grown from a $450 million organisation (2013) to over $1.481 billion (2023), reaching more people than ever before and making a bigger impact on their lives. As an employee of the IRC's global headquarters in New York, Mr. Miliband's salary is set by the IRC US board of directors' compensation committee and is in the middle of the range of New York's non-profit CEO salaries.”
That’s a list that would seem to include a wide range of non-profits, from Ivy League schools to private hospitals: The president of Cornell earned about $1.9 million, and the CEO of Mount Sinai $2.6 million, according to ProPublica’s handy Nonprofit Explorer. Other humanitarian groups may be more comparable. Here’s a range of CEO compensation from those with US tax filings: American Red Cross ($873,000), Catholic Relief Services ($640,000), Direct Relief ($651,000), MercyCorps ($537,000), Oxfam ($503,000), Save the Children ($617,000), and World Vision International (£503,000 or about $640,000).
Gaza divides: Wrapped up in dissatisfaction and staff anger at budget cuts are the ongoing internal tensions over IRC’s stance on Gaza. Many staff see it as too passive, and – especially in recent weeks – increasingly hushed. “It’s a very dark mood within the organisation,” an IRC staffer said. “And it’s coupled with what is happening around Gaza as well… our public messaging around Gaza has become almost non-existent.”
Big Aid still wants to grow: Humanitarian funding peaked in 2022, donors’ pursestrings are still tight, and polycrises are spiralling. Coupled with the aims of decolonisation and humanitarian reform, it means that the big aid groups that ballooned through budget boom years need to re-evaluate the growth-driven missions of the last decade, right? It’s a topic that came up in an internal budget briefing that IRC’s acting finance chief, Martin Bratt, gave to staff in May. In response to a question on whether IRC grew staff too quickly, Bratt replied: “Yes, that is part of the problem, absolutely.” There was “a lot of growth” in 2021 and 2022, he said. “I think we maybe thought that some of that was going to continue, and we should have budgeted more conservatively in terms of how we spent some of that unrestricted windfall, rather than kind of run up costs,” he said, according to a recording of the meeting shared with The New Humanitarian. For now, the growth mindset appears to be intact. IRC says it’s still projecting “sustained annual income” of more than $1.5 billion – more than it earned at the height of the pandemic.
Gaza aid blocks: Here are some more aid items Israeli authorities recently stopped from entering Gaza, according to an update from humanitarian NGOs: alcohol-based products, non-food items or NFI kits, dignity and hygiene-related stocks, tents, shelter toolkits, and psychotropic medication for mental health interventions. There were also 17 pallets of temperature-controlled medicine stuck in Egypt, because Israeli authorities reportedly only allowed flatbed trucks. For a few weeks now, the World Health Organization has said it will bring 1 million vaccine doses to stave off a polio outbreak. But polio vaccines also require careful temperature control.
Data points|
Like many big aid groups, the International Rescue Committee's revenue grew steadily through the 2010s, and spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic:
End note|
Speaking of salaries: UN and NGO paychecks are always a fun comparison. New research suggests that UN staffing costs in Ukraine are double that of international staff at international NGOs, five times what national UN staff cost, and 17 times that of national staff at local NGOs. That’s according to a recent Refugees International paper that dives into the economics behind localising aid in Ukraine. “Local intermediaries are delivering programming that is 15.5% more cost efficient than international intermediaries,” the researchers said.
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