The growing complexity of large nonprofits and an increased demand for executive talent is driving up salaries for many executives at Maryland nonprofits, the Baltimore Sun reports.

According to a Sun analysis of about two hundred local nonprofits with at least $20 million in annual income, seven of the state's 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations paid more than $1 million in salary and benefits to at least one official in 2003, while thirty paid out more than $500,000. At the same time, the Sun reports, nonprofits are also offering bonuses, long-term incentives, and benefits that are more reminiscent of publicly traded companies.

The trend is especially noticeable at nonprofit hospitals and healthcare systems. In Maryland, for example, the nonprofit executive with the highest compensation in 2003 was Christopher M. Carney, the then-CEO at Marriottsville-based Bon Secours Health System, which employs more than 25,000 people across twenty-one hospitals and other healthcare facilities in nine states. Carney, who tripled the system's facilities in his eight years as CEO and has since retired, received more than $1.5 million in salary, bonus, and benefits in 2003. Rounding out the top five were the University of Maryland Medical System, the Johns Hopkins Health System, MedStar Health, and LifeBridge Health, which each paid their top executive at least $1.2 million.

The reason for such salaries, said Lester M. Salamon, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, is straightforward. "Nonprofits are realizing that they have to compete more intensively with the business sector for certain kinds of key positions. That's probably pushing...wages up."

Others are quick to point out that most of the top jobs in the sector come with salaries that wouldn't raise eyebrows. Half the chief executives of Maryland nonprofits, for example, earned salaries and bonuses of less than $70,000 in 2003. "The very high compensation of a very small number masks the very low compensation of a very large number," said Rick Cohen, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog and advocacy organization that promotes public accountability among foundations, corporate grantmakers, and individual donors.

Still, some charity experts think the problem isn't that large nonprofits are competing for corporate talent, but that some of them aren't nonprofits at all. Hospitals, for example, used to be gathering places for the poor but now are fee-for-service providers, said John D. Colombo, a University of Illinois law professor who studies charities. "I don't think there is much rationale for multimillion-dollar business enterprises being tax-exempt," added Colombo.