While more than 25,000 charities are registered in New Zealand and employ more than 200,000 people, manage more than $100 billion in assets and generate incomes accounting for about 10% of gross domestic product, the top 1% accounts for almost half the sector’s total.
The 174 qualifying charities in the Herald survey – looking at organisations with annual revenues or net assets of more than $50 million – account for about 45% of both income earned and assets managed by the sector. The charities in the survey collectively earn $16.5b annually, own assets worth $50.3b, and employ 60,243 fulltime equivalent paid staff.
Nearly 20% of charities surveyed by the Herald, typically at the smaller end of the revenue and asset cut-offs, either did not provide – or provided incomplete – information on key management remuneration and the number of staff this pool covered.
Even when this was recorded, some inconsistencies emerged in how charities account for the data. Analysis initially suggested the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin paid its key management staff an average of $494,380. Further inquiries found its million-dollar executive pay pool covered 16 staff – including its bishop – who each received a fairly modest stipend.
“Our current bishop is not the best paid religious leader in NZ,” a spokesperson for the diocese said. “She receives a stipend and a housing allowance which approximate $104k in the 2025 year.”
The charities featured in this survey paid 1320 key management personnel a total of $271m annually, for an average of $205,000 per annum.
Sector regulator Charlotte Stanley, director of Charities Services, said charity financial reporting – including key management remuneration – was governed by the External Reporting Board, which was set to review accounting standards next year.
“We will be closely watching the outcome of this review and considering what it means for registered charities,” Stanley said.
Charities Services would step in “if salaries are substantially out of proportion to a charity’s size and activities”, but ultimately these were the responsibility of charity boards and their trustees, she said.
“There is no salary cap for charities in New Zealand,” Stanley said. “We provide general guidance that payments must be reasonable and not more than the market rate.”
But determining what is “reasonable” is a near-impossible question to answer with a hard figure.
Charlotte Stanley, general manager of Charities Services at the Department of Internal Affairs says there is no salary cap for charities in New Zealand.
Part of a Charities Registration Board (CRB) investigation into political funding by the Waipareira Trust last year included trying to assess what level of executive pay in the sector was reasonable. This is complicated by diversity, which ranges from academics, social services providers, health providers and entire hospitals, religious organisations and quasi-commercial operations with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues.
The CRB sought information from a remuneration consultant about executive pay levels in the voluntary sector, but was advised that they “could not provide meaningful or useful comparative information”.
In place of formal advice, the Charities Services provided the CRB a copy of a February 2024 media article: the first time the Herald had conducted its Charity Pay Survey, which identified Waipareira’s executives as the country’s then-highest-paid.
After the release of its most recent accounts, Waipareira no longer makes the top 20, reporting average executive pay of $260,000 – an apparent halving from the earlier figure. This followed group restructuring that makes direct comparison with earlier periods impossible. Waipareira now also reports its key management staff accounts for 22 FTEs – the largest pool of such executives in the sector, which dilutes averages.
While the list below looks at the top of the charity-pay ladder, religious or religiously motivated organisations stand out at the bottom for being parsimonious.
The Salvation Army New Zealand Trust Group is especially notable. Despite reporting revenues of $268m, assets of $767m and being the sixth-largest employer in the sector with 1680 staff, the Salvation Army pays its 10 key management personnel an average of $100,000 per year.
The 20 best-paid charity executives
1. Southern Cross Health Trust Group (9 FTE key staff, $603,560 average pay, +18.9% on previous year).
Southern Cross operates 10 hospitals nationwide, including this one in Rotorua. Photo / Andrew Warner
The Southern Cross Health Trust Group is the medical services arm of the Southern Cross Group. It is the largest private healthcare organisation in New Zealand and operates 10 wholly owned hospitals nationwide. It also, by some margin, has the highest-paid charity managers in New Zealand.
The group reports employing more than 1600 fulltime staff equivalents – many of them doctors and surgeons, some of whom will earn more than their executive – and generated annual revenue of $729m. Chris White has been chief executive of the group, and its largest subsidiary Southern Cross Healthcare, since 2021.
A parallel entity, the Southern Cross Medical Care Society Group, operates a health insurance business that hauls in nearly $2b in annual premium revenues and is subject to income tax. Its chief executive is disclosed in the accounts to have been paid $1.1m last year.
2. Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust and Group (16, $520,880, +66.8%)
CEO Donna Flavell
The Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust and Group is the primary entity managing the assets and operations of Waikato-Tainui. The iwi has an asset base of $2.4b, largely grown from the proceeds of its landmark 1995 Treaty of Waitangi Settlement.
The trust works on behalf of more than 94,000 members, distributed nearly 10,000 scholarships and grants last year, and is building out a billion-dollar infrastructure project in the form of the Ruakura Inland Port.
Compensation to key management personnel jumped significantly over the past year, but the trust did not respond to questions querying this increase in payments. It is worth noting that major subsidiary Tainui Group Holdings’ chief executive Chris Joblin, who had been in the job for nine years and previously been chief financial officer, left the role during the reporting period.
3. University of Auckland (16, $456,750, +1.4%)
VC Dawn Freshwater (replaced by Nic Smith in August 2026)
The University of Auckland attracted $29m in donations last year.
The first university on this list, the University of Auckland, is the country’s largest tertiary education provider. Most universities have structured themselves as charities to have an edge when fundraising – donors are entitled to tax credits equal to a third of the amount donated – and the University of Auckland used this to attract $29m in donations last year, down from $40m the year prior.
The University of Auckland is a large organisation in New Zealand by any measure, but it is the largest charity by staff size, asset base and annual income. Its 47,000 students make it almost twice as large as second-placed university Massey.
With 5438 fulltime-equivalent staff, the University of Auckland accounts for 2% of all staff employed by the charitable sector. Its asset base, underpinned by large swathes of real estate in central Auckland and beyond, totals $5.4b. Last year it hauled in revenues of $1.5b – mostly from government grants and tuition fees.
4. Lincoln University (5.8, $405,000, -0.4%)
VC Grant Edwards
The country’s smallest university appears to have the tertiary sector’s second-highest paid executives, although Lincoln’s statistics are inflated by reporting a comparatively small pool of executive staff. Lincoln’s staff levels are less than a tenth of Auckland’s (478 compared with 4351), with an accordingly similar fraction of students.
While only a university since 1990, its 1878 origins as an agricultural college mark it as the oldest such institution in the Southern Hemisphere.
5. AUT Millennium Trust (1, $400,000, -0.3%)
CEO Mike Stanley
AUT Millennium is one of the smallest entities on this list (64 staff and $12m of income), appearing largely as its chief executive officer seems to be listed as the sole individual counted as senior management personnel.
Mike Stanley has been chief executive since the entity was established in 2001. The total remuneration pool of $399,875 also covers seven trustees, whose individual fees were not disclosed.
AUT Millennium was established to enhance high-performance sports training and community health by a range of Auckland swimming and sports clubs. It later became AUT’s fourth campus, and a donation from Sir Owen Glenn enabled the building of an Olympic-grade swimming facility.
6. Ngāi Tahu Charitable Group (18, $386,390, +20%)
CEO Ben Batemen
The South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu has become a regional powerhouse since its 1998 Treaty claims settlement and operates a range of tourism, fisheries, agricultural and property interests on behalf of its more than 86,000 members.
With over $2b in assets, the group bounced back in 2025 when it recorded a $93m surplus after incurring a $24m deficit the year prior.
7. Dilworth Trust (8, $379,630, +11.4%)
CEO Ewen Anderson
With nearly a billion dollars in net assets, Dilworth School in Auckland is the best-resourced school in New Zealand. Photo / Dean Purcell
New Zealand’s richest private school has endured a torrid few years as it grappled with the fallout from historical abuse cases – and unprecedented compensation payouts in the tens of millions – and a sustained property downturn.
Its management team is tasked with not only running a school, but also a near-10-figure property empire. Founded in 1894 with a bequest of then-farmland, the property gradually became part of central Auckland and in 2020 Dilworth reached $1b in equity, largely underpinned by extensive real estate investments in the city.
The proceeds of this land bank are used to run a no-fees boarding school for boys. Now, six years on from becoming the country’s first billion-dollar school, Dilworth’s equity levels are lower than they were in 2020 and school running costs in recent years have had to be partly met by the sale of investment properties.
8. Massey University (10, $379,300, +1.5%)
VC Jan Thomas (replaced by Pierre Venter in February 2026)
The country’s second-largest university employs nearly 2500 staff and generates $282m in revenues from an asset base of nearly $2b.
Originally based in Palmerston North, Massey was a pioneer in distance education and expanded to a satellite campus in Albany and today has more than 26,000 students enrolled.
9. Victoria University of Wellington (10, $365,100, 6.6%)
VC Nic Smith (replaced by Bryony James in May 2026)
The capital’s university was founded in 1897 and occupies a good chunk of the suburbs of Kelburn, which provides the bulk of its $1.4b in listed assets. After incurring an $8.4m deficit in 2024, the following year Victoria was back to black and reported a $9.5m surplus.
10. Saint Kentigern Group (6, $354,330, -4.5%)
Executive trustee Kevin Morris
Saint Kentigern College’s multimillion-dollar Year 12 and 13 building. Photo / Saint Kentigern College
The largest private school grouping in New Zealand also has its best-paid managers. Saint Kentigern has more than 3500 students enrolled across its co-ed college, a boys’ and a girls’ primary, and a preschool.
Its key management includes all four principals of its constituent schools, a chief operating officer and an overseeing “executive trustee” in the form of Dr Kevin Morris.
11. Waikato River Authority (3.2, $350,310, -19.8%)
CEO Antione Coffin
Another oddity on this list – with small staffing levels, and low income and assets compared to most of its high-paying contemporaries – is the Crown-Iwi body set up by the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010.
The Waikato River Authority (WRA) is funded by the Crown, with $220m allocated across 30 years, and provides grants to restore the Waikato River. In 2025, the WRA distributed $5.1m in grants and incurred $4.1m in operating expenses.
WRA accounts record holding $200m in assets – although $79m of this is Crown funding due to be allocated in coming years – including $95m in bonds and listed equities.
12. University of Waikato Group (15.77, $346,480, -7.8%)
VC Neil Quigley
The baby boomer of New Zealand universities, the University of Waikato was founded in 1964 and ranks only above Lincoln in net assets. Waikato has been in better financial health recently, reporting a $22m surplus in 2025, after being $8m in the black the year earlier. These results led to debt paid down over the period going from $31m to $19m.
13. University of Canterbury and Trust Funds Group (16, $344,190, +5.7%)
VC Cheryl de al Rey
The University of Canterbury, the country’s second-oldest, has reported deficits over the past two years, narrowing from $12m in the red to $3m by 2025.
An earlier assessment by the Herald of university finances found Canterbury’s senior managers have slipped down the best-paid podium in recent years. This story from 2020 found the Christchurch university then had the country’s highest-paid tertiary managers.
14. Tātaki Auckland Unlimited Trust (5, $340,400, +9.8%)
CEO Nick Hill
Tātaki Auckland Unlimited is a recently formed (2020) agglomeration of Auckland council-controlled organisations and is composed of the old Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) and Regional Facilities.
The organisation runs many public-facing council venues and attractions, including the zoo, art gallery, and a range of live venues used for concerts and sports. Tātaki manages $2b in assets and generates $205m in revenue – with about two-thirds coming from Auckland Council.
15. Ngāti Whakaue Endowment Trust (0.86, $336,050, +8.7%)
Chairman Malcolm Short
The smallest organisation to make this list, the Ngāti Whakaue Endowment Trust employs no staff and its key management personnel were said to be 11 trustees – equivalent in total to 0.86 FTEs – who received a total of $288,922 in meeting fees.
Established with an 1880 endowment by the iwi of Ngāti Whakaue, the trust has the purpose of furthering education in Rotorua using the proceeds of $94m in accumulated financial and property assets.
In 2025, the trust distributed $1.7m in grants after incurring $1.4m in administration expenses.
16. Braemar Charitable Trust Group (5, $329,200, +38.5%)
Hospital CEO Fiona Michel
The owner of Hamilton’s Braemar Hospital employs more than 250 fulltime equivalents and generated revenues of $81m – the vast bulk from fees for surgical and medical services paid for by Health New Zealand, third-party health insurers or the Accident Compensation Corporation.
In addition to this paid work, Braemar, whose hospital will this year celebrate its centenary, reports undertaking 217 charitable surgeries last year at no cost to patients.
17. St John (7, $328,900, -1.7%)
CEO Peter Bradley
St John is currently dealing with record levels of demand. Photo / St John NZ
St John, today operating as Hato Hone, runs the national ambulance service (with the exception of Wellington) and is the fourth-largest charity by staff numbers with 3630 fulltime equivalents.
The charity generates $595m in annual revenues and reported a $29m surplus last year – after reporting a $17m deficit the year prior – by keeping expenses flat and boosting fundraising and fees for transportation services.
Its smaller counterpart Wellington Free Ambulance Group pays similar levels of executive salaries (five FTEs earning $305,800 on average) despite employing one-seventh the number of staff of St John and serving a smaller territory.
18. Royal New Zealand Coastguard Incorporated (7, $321,140, +69.5%)
CEO Callum Gillespie (replaced by Carl McOnie in June 2025)
Another small oddity on this list, with 93 staff, Royal New Zealand Coastguard had the most significant increase in expenditure on senior staff over the past year, reporting a 70% increase.
Kimberly Waters, a spokesperson for the organisation, said this increase was because of a “significant governance and structure transformation” that incurred a “range of one-off costs typical of organisational change at this scale – including external specialist expertise to help guide the work, alongside other transition-related costs”.
19. Wright Family Charity Group (8, $313,880, +11.7%)
Best Start CEO Tony Ryall
The Wright Family Charity Group, founded by the late Wayne and Chloe Wright, has a unique structure and operates New Zealand’s largest childcare empire Best Start Educare.
The Wright Family Charitable Group is a unique charitable organisation. At its core is the commercially focused Best Start Educare childcare giant – the largest such operation in the country – whose tax-free proceeds since founding have largely been directed towards its rich list donors after they sold the enterprise to their own charity in 2015.
Best Start employs 3750 fulltime equivalents – making it the third-largest charitable employer in New Zealand, behind Auckland and Otago universities – and last year generated revenues of $420m, of which three-quarters was government funding.
The next decade should lead to the Wright Family Charity Group transforming again. The $332m related-party loan from Wright private interests used to finance the 2015 sale has largely been paid down.
The accounts to March 2025 show the balance now stands at $83m, suggesting it will likely be paid off entirely by the end of the decade and free up more than $30m of annual cashflows to support the Wright Family Charity Group’s focus on education and health endeavours.
20. Search and Rescue Services Group (4, $311,750, +10%)
CEO Paul Baxter
The smallest organisation on this list by equity – $5m – the Search and Rescue Services Group is an umbrella grouping of rescue helicopter trusts that deliver air ambulance and rescue services in the North Island.
This group runs the most leveraged operations of any charity on this list, with a debt-to-equity ratio of four (all other charities on this list have a ratio under one). Some of the explanation for this debt comes from new equipment purchases.
The Search and Rescue Services Group has recently signed purchase contracts worth $125.8m to purchase seven helicopters, with delivery expected from September last year through until June 2027.
Key management pay information for nearly 200 other large charities compiled as part of this project (includes organisations with more than $50m of assets or annual income) can be found using the search tool below:
Sources: Key management remuneration average derived by dividing key management compensation by FTEs reported in charity annual reports. Financial data and FTE estimates (dividing reported paid hours per week by 40) taken from annual return information filed to the Charities Register. Most recently filed reports used (typically to 2025-26, but some charities are late in submitting up-to-date accounts).
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter and ICIJ member covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.
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