Could not happen to a better bunch of people - Greenpeace's finances now match their politics

At least in Australia -- I hope this spreads. From Australia's The Age:

Greenpeace heads into red as costs bite
It's not only regular companies that are under pressure. Even multinational stunt outfit Greenpeace is feeling the pinch.

The latest accounts of Greenpeace Australia Pacific show it has slumped into the red after a big jump in personnel expenses.

The company suffered a $1.5 million turnaround, losing $193,992 and ringing up a $438,475 deficit on the operating cash-flow front.

Judging from accounts for calendar-year 2008, the eco-political concern will need to pay attention to its soaring wages, salaries and superannuation bill, which jumped 31 per cent and swallowed up $7.6 million.

The personnel costs take a decent chunk of money raised from Greenpeace's supporter base, which, over time, has been falling alarmingly. Six years ago the outfit had nearly 130,000 supporters but the latest accounts said the base was "approximately" 100,000.

Greenpeace recently copped flak for "auto-upgrading" some regular donations, without specific permission from contributors. "We are not the first organisation in Australia to try this," fund-raising heavy Chris Washington-Sare reportedly said at the time.

The auto-upgrading was quite the bit of a scandal when it happened. A person would sign up for an automatic deduction of $15/year from their credit card only to find that this had been "upgraded" to $25 or $30. Greenpeace sent them a letter first but if there was no reply to the letter, that was taken as a tacit approval of the higher contribution. Considing that probably the majority of their constituants are younger people on tight budgets, this really put them into a bad light. And a bit more:

The donations were swallowed up by what Greenpeace described as "fund-raising expenditure" of $7.2 million, "campaigning expenditure" of $11.5 million and "organisational support" at $1.9 million.

So they raise $20 million and spend $7.2 million doing this. That is 36% - from the ever excellent BoardSource:

How much should be spent on overhead and fundraising costs?
Because most donors want to ensure that their gifts are well spent, many are concerned about the level of expenditures on overhead and fund-raising. In other words, how much money is spent providing programs and services, and how much is spent on renting an office, paying staff, and sending out fund-raising appeals?
yadda - yadda - yadda
Many organizations boast that they spend only five or six percent of their funds on overhead; other well-known and effective nonprofits spend 25 or 30 percent on overhead.

So Greenpeace is above the very high-side of what would constitute a well managed fund raising campaign. And one bit more:

Travel looked to have soaked up a pretty penny, with Greenpeace personnel visiting Tokyo, Niue, Pohnpei, South Korea, Poland and Papua New Guinea, while Greenpeace vessel MV Esperanza toured seven east-coast Australian cities and treated more than 5000 visitors to its take on climate change.

The Esperanza also was involved in the Forests for Climate tour in Papua New Guinea.

I find it telling that one of the two people who founded Greenpeace, left the group and now embraces sustainable logging and nuclear power. Pournelle's Iron Law again...