The Week (Magazine)'s issue of the week in business was "Golden handshakes for tarnished CEOs".

Of course the focus was on the mega-buck settlements that folks like O'Neal from Merrill Lynch and Prince of Citigroup got to have after losing even more megabucks for each of their respective companies.  And, when I say megabucks I am talking about $159 million for O'Neal and $29.5 million for Prince who also got a $12 million "performance bonus".

Ok, so we won't actually talk about these types of figures for nonprofits.  Nonprofits don't generally lose this amount of money although they could (if you think about some colleges, hospitals or museums -- they could).

But nonprofit execs do screw up and they do get settlements -- again, no where near the amounts of O'Neal and Prince but I know that nonprofit boards do make settlements.  These settlements are certainly not in the same zones proportionately but in the eyes of donors they are just as unsatisfying. 

But who really is at fault -- the boards who are not fulfilling their fiduciary obligations and who, for my money, nonprofit or for-profit, should be paying the debt to their executives, out of their own pockets, not the consumers or for the nonprofit, the service beneficiaries. 

What's fair is fair and this is not, fair that is.