S.F. gave these homeless nonprofits nearly $2 billion. The salaries of their execs might surprise you
By Maggie Angst, Emma StiefelJune 27, 2025
Nonprofits serving homeless people in San Francisco work with the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Recruiting top talent to run these agencies costs money — but some of their execs earn a surprising amount.
Benjamin Fanjoy/For the S.F. Chronicle
Nonprofits serving homeless people in San Francisco work with the city’s poorest and most vulnerable people, yet some of their top executives are earning salaries and benefits totaling more than double the city’s average household income, a Chronicle analysis has found.
Non-governmental organizations in San Francisco play a crucial role in the city’s efforts to address its homelessness crisis, and experts say transparency regarding executive pay, the organization’s fiscal health and program outcomes is integral to ensuring accountability and building donor trust.
The 20 nonprofits that have the largest amounts in active contracts with San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing have been awarded almost $2 billion from the city since 2017. While those city contracts represent a large chunk of the overall funding of some of the organizations, they represent only a small portion for others.
According to their most recent tax returns, the nonprofits pulled in a combined $1.8 billion in total income from all of their funding sources in fiscal year 2023, including charitable contributions, private donations and contracts with San Francisco and other public entities.
The average total compensation, including benefits, among the top executives of the nonprofits that held the city’s biggest homelessness contracts was about $300,000, with a wide range from less than $100,000 to about $680,000.
The Chronicle identified the nonprofits with the highest value active contracts with the homelessness department using a city dataset and determined income and executive pay based on public tax filings for the most recently available fiscal year. Total executive compensation includes base pay, bonuses, retirement, deferred compensation and other nontaxable benefits.
Some nonprofits on the Chronicle’s list have seen leadership changes since their last tax filings. Maurilio León, former head of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, passed away in February 2024. Patricia Doyle, former executive director of the Providence Foundation of San Francisco, was put on leave last year following accusations of fraud and has left the nonprofit.
Some major organizations that serve unhoused people and receive tens of millions of dollars from San Francisco, such as the addiction treatment provider HealthRight 360 or Glide Foundation, are not included on this list because their contracts are with city agencies outside of the homelessness department. Those other funding agencies include the Department of Public Health or the Human Services Agency.
Under state law, a nonprofit’s board of directors is responsible for setting executive pay and ensuring the compensation is “just and reasonable.”
Joan Harrington, a fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said board members are required to conduct a comparability analysis, where they consider the organization’s complexity and fiscal health and executive pay at other private companies or nonprofits of a similar scale.
As a board member, Harrington said, “you want maximum performance and to be able to attract the best people… but without crossing that line where it’s hard for people to justify how someone could earn that much money.”
“Nonprofit executives are not supposed to starve to serve social service organizations,” she added. “We want them to be properly compensated so they stay in their jobs and do good.”
Dr. Blayne Cutler, executive director of Heluna Health, was paid about $680,000 last year. The nonprofit public health organization recorded $670 million in total income — nearly three times more than any other organization on the list.
The organization operates health programs and deploys outreach workers in jurisdictions across the state, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Contra Costa County. Cutler joined Heluna Health in 2014 after serving as New York City’s assistant commissioner for HIV Prevention and Control. Her compensation amounted to just 0.1% of the nonprofit’s top line in 2023. The average CEO on the Chronicle’s list took home 0.6% of their organization’s total revenue.
Heluna Health has $37 million in active contracts with the city, which is much less than some of the other organizations on the Chronicle’s list. By comparison, the permanent supportive housing operators Tenderloin Housing Clinic and Episcopal Community Services, have $327 million and $278 million respectively in active city contracts.
CEOs across the private and public sectors make considerably more than the average worker — a gap that continues to widen — and the nonprofits on the Chronicle’s list are no different.
In fiscal year 2023, some top executives on the Chronicle’s list saw their total compensation climb as much as 26% from the year prior, according to tax filings.
Ricky Pickens, a case manager and union representative for Larkin Street Youth Services, called the widening disparity between executives and frontline workers “disappointing.” Pickens works three jobs to make ends meet, and the union had to put up a fight during its last contract negotiation around three years ago to get up to 4.5% annual raises.
“It should be more than it is,” Pickens said about employee raises, “especially knowing what she (the nonprofit’s CEO) is getting.”
Sherilyn Adams, executive director of Larkin Street Youth Services, emphasized that her pay was set by the board and that she has worked to try and increase pay and benefits for her employees.
“I wish that we could continue to increase their compensation for the very, very hard, amazing work they do,” she said. “But at the end of the day, we’re only able to do what our funding allows us to do.”
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has set aside a 1% “cost of doing business” increase for contracted nonprofits in his proposed budget. This allocation is less than amounts given in recent years that service providers, including Adams, have called inadequate.
Rocio Molina, director of the San Francisco Human Services Network, said in a statement that the low rate increase “exacerbates the widening pay disparity” between nonprofit workers and comparable city staff.
Top executives at several San Francisco nonprofit organizations tasked with tackling the area's growing homelessness issue are making more than twice as much as the city's average household income, a new investigation found.
These nonprofit groups, while independent from government, are central to the city’s homelessness strategy. Experts say that public trust depends on transparency, how these groups manage their finances, measure the success of their programs, and determine executive pay.
"You want maximum performance and to be able to attract the best people ... but without crossing that line where it's hard for people to justify how someone could earn that much money," said Joan Harrington, a fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
The salary range for the CEOs at the top 10 nonprofit organizations in San Francisco ranged from $278,700 to $679,900. Heluna Health CEO Blayne Cutler made the most money.
Cutler joined Heluna Health in 2014. Prior to that, she was a physician trained in infectious disease and public health. She served as New York City's Assistant Commissioner for HIV Prevention and Control under Democratic Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio. The nonprofit public health organization recorded $670 million in income, nearly three times more than any other organization on the list.
Steve Good, the president and CEO of Five Keys Schools and Programs, pulled in $451,500. Five Keys is a nationally recognized "trauma-informed restorative justice organization" that is dedicated to ending mass incarceration. Its total income was $122 million. Five Keys was founded in 2003 by the San Francisco Sheriff's Department as the first accredited charter high school in the nation for adults in county jails. Since then, it has expanded to 14 California counties and offers high school education and access to college and workforce programs for underserved people in the area.
