charities should pay good money

Chua Mui Hoong wrote, 'Do away with cheap and good.' In her article she questioned the perception of people that honchos of charities should not be paid well. Her argument is that these honchos must be rewarded at market rate like any organisations. That charities should pay good money for good people. This argument immediately falls flat with NKF and Youth Challenge as outstanding examples of paying good money for frauds. The other point is the assumption that charities should be run like commercial businesses. This is exactly what is wrong with charities. Charities are charities and should be run like charities. Charities should be run by charitable people with a heart and not one with money in his head. People who wants to make their millions shall not run charities. These are money from the hearts, public money given to help needy people. Not for people to get rich. Go and get rich in the private sector. Make all the money if you can and no one will raise an eyebrow. But making money and getting filthy rich on public money is unacceptable. This is one of the fallacies that Singaporeans are made to believe. That every man is driven by money. And it is good to employ men by using money as the key motivator and nothing else.