Ashton Kutcher's failed promise to Iowans (Native Fund)
- Thread starter Bret44
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Do they expect a locally renowned athlete and lawyer to make normal salary? I mean sure it would be swell if McCann did it for free, but his NFL career didn't pay him much and presumably he is spending time doing this instead of being a lawyer. I assume McCann costs more than someone without name recognition.
Has the des Moines register even had anything on this? For a paper that gets off on digging up dirt any anyone and anything i can't remember seeing anything about this.
To break a story like this that would require them to put in actual effort. If they can't use a quick tool to pull past tweets, it's not worth their trouble.
Over four years it says. Not completely out of line for a one man show. He likely took a pretty big pay cut to work for them.
I don’t see anyone who got screwed here. They admit that the concerts were inefficient ways of raising money, but it’s not like they were soliciting donations to pay for staff. I know a lot of people who went to both shows because they were big acts, not because the concerts were raising money. I didn’t even know the Newton show was put on by this group. It looks like nearly all of their revenue was from the events, and they still may some pretty major grants to those in need.
This article was looking for clicks by going after big names in my opinion.
$150k/year, which doesn’t seem outlandish for an established attorney (disclosure: I have no idea), but is almost double the average Iowa salary for a director of a charity of that size. To me, the hubris of overpaying a buddy to run the charity is nothing compared to thinking they could jump in to concert promotion with no experience to speak of.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to do with the industry, but it sounds like talent agents took full advantage. As with everything, there’s not a lot of margin. I wonder if they missed on the usual profit makers (parking, concessions, a percentage of merch sales), too. They never had a chance.
But why? I presume they sought him out specifically and paid him a rate they deemed to be fair. His name carries more weigthan probably any other charity director of a similar level of donations, and seeing as they were organizing concerts attended by 50k people, they were probably hoping to be in a higher donation level.
Newbo evolve was a complete failure and they didn't even pay their bills. Seems like this charity wasn't real successful with helping people, but they didn't stiff anyone and they let McCann go when they realized it wasn't sustainable.
Wish I had a side gig that paid 150k a year.
The article implies this was a $150K per year part-time job. He was working full-time for Brick-Gentry Law Firm the whole time. I wasn't 100% sure, so I looked, and found this industry-article written in 2014, yes, he was working for Brick-Gentry then: https://www.pageturnpro.com/Business-Publications/55664-BR-Iowa-1-10-14/sdefault.html#page/6
So yeah. I have zero industry knowledge, but job where you earn $150K per year, but it's "low-demanding" enough that you can keep working at a big law firm while doing it ... it just doesn't pass the smell test.
I also applaud the Gazette for doing the article. Wonder if they'll get blow-back from some of the local readers.
Seems like they had good intentions to try and raise money as a non profit, just didn't manage it correctly.
The "non profits" where executives and managers make big bucks on a continuous basis are the ones that piss me off. LifeServe Blood Center is the one that that tops my list. Have people donate their blood, use a staff of volunteers wherever possible. Then turn around and sell the blood for big bucks to hospitals and labs. I poked around the internet and looked at their financials and tax info. I am not an accountant so I don't understand it all, but it did seem like there is a group of executives and staff doctors that make some fairly decent wages and had sizable bonuses lumped in with a nondescript general wages area. Too me that is not a non profit.
The "non profits" where executives and managers make big bucks on a continuous basis are the ones that piss me off. LifeServe Blood Center is the one that that tops my list. Have people donate their blood, use a staff of volunteers wherever possible. Then turn around and sell the blood for big bucks to hospitals and labs. I poked around the internet and looked at their financials and tax info. I am not an accountant so I don't understand it all, but it did seem like there is a group of executives and staff doctors that make some fairly decent wages and had sizable bonuses lumped in with a nondescript general wages area. Too me that is not a non profit.
ANL America Needs Lawyers
Never mind that you can't swing a dead cat on a sidewalk in the USA with hitting a lawyer. And in Iowa you can't do it without hitting a Hawkeye so guess it's what they got.
