Washington Blade - March 20, 2009
Chris Johnson

Craig Shniderman, executive director of Food & Friends, received $382,200 in salary and benefits in 2008, according to a March 11 statement to the Blade from Robert Hall III, president of the organization's board.

The compensation is nearly seven percent higher than the $357,447 figure cited as Shniderman's compensation on Food & Friends' Internal Revenue Service forms for 2007.

Hall said Shniderman's base salary was $260,000 and the remaining $122,200 consists of pension and deferred compensation, plus medical, life and disability insurance. Shniderman receives no bonus as part of his compensation, Hall said.

The Blade learned about Shniderman's 2008 compensation from his organization's answers to a salary and revenue questionnaire sent to HIV/AIDS and LGBT nonprofit organizations around the country. The Blade will publish the full results for about 30 organizations next week.

Shniderman first started taking heat for his compensation last year when Michael Petrelis, a gay activist in San Francisco, published the executive director's 2006 compensation on his blog. At around the same time, Food & Friends announced that it would have to roll back services because of government funding cutbacks and increased gasoline and food costs.

Petrelis, who's HIV positive, wrote at the time that he hopes Shniderman "contemplates everything possible he can do to better assist people with AIDS in these dire times [to] meet their food and nutritional needs" and "considers reducing his quite excessive compensation package."

In a statement Monday, Shniderman said Food & Friends didn't decrease services in 2008, but was "obligated to slow the rate of increase" in its meals program. He said Food & Friends has continued to increase its services for 2009.

Hall said Shniderman's compensation was justified because Food & Friends benefits from his 14 years of leadership at the organization and his 35 years of experience in the donor field.

"Food & Friends knows that committed leadership at the board and staff level combined with tireless efforts of volunteers and staff result in donor confidence," he said.

Hall also said Food & Friends is freezing the salaries of all staff - including Shniderman - at their 2008 level for at least the first quarter of 2009.

"We will monitor financial circumstances as the year progresses so as to determine whether it will be possible to provide increases to salaries and other benefits," Hall said.

Food & Friends employs 49 full-time staffers, one part-time staffer and more than 11 part-time staffers as independent contractors, Hall said.

Food & Friends' revenue for 2008 was $7,965,000, Hall said, meaning that Shniderman's compensation comprises about 5 percent of the organization's annual revenue.

Doug White, a local nonprofit management adviser and author of "Charity on Trial," said the increase in Shniderman's compensation "raises eyebrows."

"I can't imagine other people being paid that much at that kind of organization with that kind of revenue," White said.

White said Shniderman's level of compensation is usually reserved for chief executives working at organizations with annual revenues of about $50-$100 million.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the Chicago-based American Institute of Philanthropy, said Shniderman's compensation "appears large in relation to other non-profits that serve the poor and needy."

"Particularly now with all the layoffs of professional people, they ought to revisit if the salary's necessary," he said.

Borochoff noted that Food & Friends claimed $11.7 million in its 2007 IRS forms for net assets and fund balances. He said the increase in Shniderman's compensation - despite concerns raised in the media last year - shows that the organization's "large bank account insulates them from the concerns of the public."

Hall said that "through the careful stewardship" of the board and management, Food & Friends "continued to accomplish amazing work throughout 2008."

Shniderman said such work includes increasing the meals it prepared and delivered from 898,000 in 2007 to 913,000 in 2008. Food & Friends also grew its number of volunteers from 6,500 in 2007 to 13,000 in 2008.

Hall also noted that Food & Friends revised its food packaging and delivery procedures to save the organization more than $250,000 without any reduction in meals to clients.

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