"We look at this through the lens of preserving the purity of the nonprofit ethic rather than looking at it through the lens of do we actually want to solve these problems and what would it take," he said. "You had better invest in leaders who are experienced at playing at those levels."
He traces some of the resistance to highly paid nonprofit executives to the tensions between religion and capitalism set by the first Puritan settlers in New England. The Puritans were aggressive capitalists who saw charity as penance for making money, he said.
"The nonprofit system is like this church," Pallotta said. It's this irrational, emotional religion that's all about scoring holy points so that you'll be saved from eternal damnation. I have this friend who says, 'the cheapest way to pay for things is with money."'