May 3, 2010; Source: Empire State News | The name of the sponsoring organization of this study is a mouthful: the New York State Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities. Its report is supposed to be a best practices guide on board governance and executive compensation in nonprofit mental health organizations, but to us, the truly interesting information is in the baseline examination of the state’s 658 nonprofit providers themselves. The best practices advice is sort of run-of-the-mill stuff like the use of employment contracts and adoption of conflict of interest policies. But of more interest is the median compensation for CEOs at $117,000, that 85 percent of their compensation was in the form of salary, that two-thirds of the CEOs had deferred compensation or retirement plans, and one-third of agencies provided their CEOs with a personal car. The nonprofit sector needs more information regarding what nonprofit subsectors do regarding compensation so that we don’t fall prey to the idea that nonprofits are all fungible.—Rick Cohen