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| Path: Main Street : NewsWeek : Op/Ed : Audience Opinions |
When former NHL hockey player Sheldon Kennedy skated across the country last summer to raise awareness of childhood sexual abuse, his foundation paid him a salary of $7,500 a month for a total of approximately $40,000 during the five month skate. Kennedy is also a board member of his foundation and has stated publicly that he has no reservations about being paid for his efforts. After salaries and expenses, the fundraising effort has netted only $500,000 of its $15 million goal.What are the implications for other charities of Kennedy's decision to accept payment for his skate? Further, has the public scrutiny of the Kennedy Foundation affected perceptions of accountability in other Canadian charities too?
Sheldon Kennedy Should not have paid himself such a salary while under the auspices of fundraising. Although his intention may have been good, I believe he has caused a great many people to question the integrity of the Association and of Sheldon himself. His $7500/mth salary certainly takes away from any heroism or sacrifice that others before him have made i.e.: Terry Fox, Rick Hansen while they undertook such a feat. Heck, I would skate across Canada for $7,500/month. Do I have any offers? It's for a good cause!-- Liz, Vancouver, BC
I believe that everyone should be paid for the work they do, but not when it comes to charity. Sheldon did this skate for charity and I think it was wrong that he required the payment of $7,500 a month. Even if he could not do the skate completely for free, though the fact that he needed the money may be a little hard to believe, he still didn't need to make his earnings that high.I think if we give professional sports people the idea that they are allowed to make profit off of charity it will never stop and only get worse. It would be a sad situation in Canada if all our valued volunteers decided that they required payment for their kindness.
-- Shannon Auringer
The fact that Sheldon Kennedy paid himself from the fund that he himself set up is another example of people willing to help out yet only go so far in their endeavours. There is no such thing anymore of a total immersion in whatever it is we are doing and for whatever reason we are doing it. It's always half-ass. The real troopers are the people who do it for the right reasons without any expectations of rewards. If the opposite was true, what would be the point?-- Anthony Carnoavle
What bothers me about this issue is not that Kennedy received compensation, but rather that the story was clearly portrayed in a different light. There was no disclosure, and having watched the story unfold in the media, I can't recall any information that would lead one to believe that Kennedy was receiving a salary in pursuit of his mission.It seems misleading (even if technically speaking there was no wrongdoing), because in lieu of information to the contrary, the obvious assumption was that this was a volunteer effort. 40k over five months is something else entirely. Again, if the foundation had been up front about it, I don't see a problem. People can made donations as they see fit. But I think it is reasonable to expect that the involvement of the key player in this sort of initiative would be out in the open from the get-go. I can understand why some donors would feel duped.
I don't think the story was particularly damaging to the charitable sector, because it has faded rather quickly from the mainstream. However, perhaps it will have a positive effect in the media (I know, wishful thinking), who in my opinion do not perform due diligence when it comes to these sorts of feel good charity stories. There are honest (vast majority) and dishonest (very few) charities just like any other sector, and the ability of the dishonest few to dupe the public is reliant in large measure upon supporting publicity from the media.
There is so much good work going on that the public will never hear about (not every story has the surface charms of the Kennedy skate) and it takes just one high profile story that goes south to lower the entire sector in the public's eyes. Fortunately, due to timing or simply lack of media interest in going for the throat, this one does not seem to have picked up enough steam to do serious damage.
--Keenan Wellar, Special Needs Network
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