L. Ron Hubbard famously said that, if you want to make a million dollars, start a religion. Today, he would probably advocate starting a left-wing NGO.
As already reported on The BFD, left-wing advocacy groups are raking in the (usually taxpayer-funded) millions and paying themselves quite handsomely. Hey, you didn’t think all that first-class travel to Swiss resorts, to bang on about climate change, comes cheap, did you?
These people have a lifestyle to maintain – and they’re making damned sure someone else pays for it.
GetUp spent more than 70 per cent of the $12.4m in public donations it raised last year on staff salaries, administration costs and travel, despite telling supporters “every dollar” they gave would be used to build a fairer Australia with spending on billboards, hard-hitting TV ads and rallies.
[…]GetUp appears to use a high proportion of supporters’ donations to pay for running costs — especially salaries — compared with other organisations in the charities and non-profit sector.
The nomenklatura are nothing if not defensive about enjoying the perks of unelected office.
[National Director Paul] Oosting defended $7.2m paid to more than six top GetUp executives, including himself, and 50 other lower-level staff on the group’s payroll, telling The Australian they were the “driving force” behind the group’s issues-based campaigns.
“GetUp’s strategists, campaigners, organisers and developers are some of our greatest assets,” he said.
The GetUp chief declined to respond when asked how his organisation’s donations income-to-expenditure ratio compared with others in the charities and non-profit industry. He declined to confirm salary levels for individual leaders, including himself, which are figures commonly disclosed in the filed reports of major companies and trade unions.
Like all scoundrels, when caught with their hand in the till, they’re quick to try and deflect their guilt by pointing the finger at someone else.
“False reporting from News Corporation papers is frustrating for everyone, but GetUp members are confident that every dollar we raise works to achieve progressive outcomes,” he said.
“Progressive outcomes”…like bullying and stalking female politicians? Trying to take over institutions like the Press Council Scamming money on the back of this summer’s bushfire tragedy?
For its “bushfire relief efforts” appeal, GetUp’s website tells supporters their donations will be used to help cover the cost of ongoing GetUp campaigns that have the same purpose “if we raise more than the cost of this campaign”.
Compare GetUp to other non-profits. Red Cross spends a higher-than-usual amount, 50%, on salaries – but much of those salaries are for people doing useful things like delivering blood and other humanitarian services. Not lining the pockets of professional left-wing agitators.
St Vincent de Paul spent half as much as GetUp does on salaries. The Starlight Children’s Foundation just one-tenth as much. But, again, both of those do actual charitable works rather than bullying and brow-beating and trying to stack elections with leftist puppets.
They also don’t cloak themselves in Stalinist secrecy.
GetUp’s only members under its corporate structure are the nine people listed in annual reports who sit on its board, plus three founding members. All others that GetUp calls its “million-plus”, “1.45 million” and “998,652” members in annual reports are supporters, volunteers or names on an email database with no voting or other rights.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/bulk-of-getup-donations-spent-on-salaries-travel/
Even GetUp’s fanatical army of nosey-nannas and unemployables are starting to notice.
GetUp faces rising dissent in its ranks from supporters who claim the left-wing campaign group’s leadership is “secretive” about how it spends millions of dollars raised from public donations, and no real power is allowed to so-called “members” in running the organisation.
Longtime GetUp volunteers who have worked in senior campaign roles said the group’s senior executives disliked criticism, and questions about operations were often rebuffed.
“GetUp is terribly secretive,” a former volunteer said. “They seem to take the view that new people are coming in all the time, so it doesn’t matter if they lose others.”
theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/secretive-getup-angers-volunteers/
Well, they’re not wrong. There’s always another useful idiot waiting in the wings for the next purge.
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