Context:
I work for a charity and we've been operating for 10 years, so basically I started from the beginning and I've seen the charity move from $100k a year income to $25m – I'm in charge of fundraising so I've undergone training and built up skills to manage everything and personally, I've raised tens of millions over the years, helping many people worldwide – I've even had to be in close proximity to dead children in the recent Turkey earthquake disaster, I've been through flooding zones, war zones, had armed security across multiple countries, , but I've done what I've done for humanity's sake as my passion lies in helping people.
So this said charity operate on a 100% donation policy meaning no money donated is used for wages, rent, marketing or admin costs, so naturally they're not able to pay amazing salaries and I completely understand, even though I'm a Maths graduate with plenty of years of experience in this field. However, we do work with bonuses so the more funds you raise, the more you can get paid.
Story:
In 2021, I signed a two year contract with fixed bonuses and what I thought was a % increased based on the same ratio, if I was to raise more funds. The base salary was less than what I asked for as I was told “we don't want to mess up the pay structure for all staff”.
So we just completed our busiest fundraising appeal ever, over 3 months we raised $17m and the CEO, without us senior managers knowing went had previously made a deal with Tiktok Influencers to pay them 15-20% of what they raised. It seemed he shot himself in the foot and made a massive mistake, as some of them raised $500-800k so they were in for a huge pay day.
I accidentally came across a spreadsheet which showed that they were going to be paid around 6 figs for a month of work whereas my bonus for 3 months was around $6000 even though in those 3 months I travelled to 4 countries, worked 15-18 hour days, slept on my office sofa overnight multiple times and did not take a single day off including weekends. So naturally, I pulled up the CEO on these Influencer figures and I kindly asked if he would double my bonus as they raised less than a mil and I raised $10m.
He outright refused, called me mad and went crazy at me for mentioning his “mistake” which was agreeing a % with Influencers but now he was stuck as he made a contract with them.
However, he did say to me he will look at our figures and see what he will do. But for context, even for bonuses I hit in the past, I had to beg him multiple times to pay me and I told him straight, he made me feel worthless, even though I was his most efficient and hard-working staff.
So let's fast forward a few days, I dropped him an invoice for my pre-agreed contractual bonus and he asked me to show him in the contract where these numbers were. When I revisited my contract, I found a clause in there which I had never seen in the last 18 months. It said whatever I hit above my targets, I can be paid 0.5% of that value. So if I was to raise an extra $1m, I'd get an extra $5000.
This was a gift from God and a massive slap in the face to the CEO. Because in essence, my bonus will be doubled.
When I told him and showed him, he outright disagreed with me and told me “I'm sure we discussed this and I refused.” So luckily for me, I never delete my previous chats so I scrolled back to 2021 and there we had it, we spoke of it and made the agreement and I signed the contract.
He went a bit mad at me and told me he needs to speak to the board for approval to pay me. I asked him why? It's contractual. He was basically throwing his toys out the pram because he really didn't want to pay me more and now he was forced to. He also undermined me by saying you're only asking for this money because your account is overdraft and you have no money. I told him this in confidentiality as I lost a lost of money in crypto and he was using it against me. All I was asking for was my due right and I more than earned it as I worked crazy hours for 3 months with crazy results. It's not like it was coming out of his pocket. We had a separate fund which was used specially to run the organisation and I know for a fact we had funds there because I raised it.
So fast forward a few more days, after he threatened to go to the board, I went to them myself as I'm good friends with 2-3 of them, and after explaining the situation, they agreed with me and my bonus was paid.
See screenshot attached.
CEO told me I'm bullying him to get what I want. He told me to take more time off work (I'm currently off until 10th). Basically said don't come back to work for a few months, I know this isn't possible as we have another campaign to run to help the suffering people of Africa and I manage everything. I don't want the poor people to miss out.
I spoke to my line manager who said its not possible for that to happen as we have work to do, and he will speak to the CEO.
So yeah, in summary, I'm considered the most valuable asset to this charity as I bring in 75% of the income every year due to my expertise in social media advertising and marketing. Without a direct replacement for me, the team are stuck and CEO is acting very emotionally. I'm stuck now as I'm supposed to be back to work on 10/5 ( I had a small break off work).
P. S. I told him that cos of his straight up disagreeing with something in the contract and him undermining me about my financial situation, I was ready to leave on the spot, but because I'm doing this work for the sake of humanity, that's keeping me here.
Happy to read your thoughts and opinions