San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Neil Giuliano was compensated more than $300,000 for the 2012-13 fiscal year, upping the income for someone who already was likely the highest-paid head of any LGBT-related nonprofit in the city.
Giuliano, 57, earned $263,580 in base salary and benefits, and the nonprofit's board gave him a $37,900 bonus last year, according to records the AIDS foundation filed with the IRS that were released this week. The filing also lists other income for Giuliano, including $10,161 in nontaxable benefits. His total compensation was $319,933, up almost 19 percent from the previous year's figure of $269,418.
With a budget last year of about $24 million, the AIDS foundation is the largest HIV/AIDS-related nonprofit in the city. Giuliano's salary and benefit package accounts for about 1.4 percent of that figure.
The agency's clients include some of San Francisco's poorest residents, and it provides free services ranging from HIV testing and counseling to distribution of clean syringes to injection drug users.
Giuliano already had a high profile when he joined the agency in 2010 after previously serving as the mayor of Tempe, Arizona and president of GLAAD.
Reached via email for a statement on Giuliano's compensation, SFAF spokesman Ryan McKeel noted that the figure is set by the nonprofit's board.
In a phone interview, Tom Perrault, who served as board chair from January 2011 to December 2013, said that when Giuliano was hired, board members had asked him "to consider this important question: How do we become the first city to end HIV transmission? It was and remains an audacious and exciting goal. We said we'd provide him with a bonus for that plan creation and continue to provide bonuses for each year he continued to make substantial progress" on that goal.
Perrault said evidence of that progress includes Giuliano securing $1 million worth of pro bono consulting work to help identify ways to end HIV transmission in San Francisco. That project provided the foundation for the health center for gay and bi men that the nonprofit is working to establish in the Castro.
Giuliano also received $200,000 worth of free work on branding and naming for the planned center, according to Perrault and the firm involved.
Giuliano, whose original salary at the AIDS foundation was $249,000, recently said he's hopeful that the center will open in December.
Aside from Giuliano's work on the center, Perrault also pointed to Giuliano's efforts to increase efficiency at the AIDS foundation and guide more money toward programs and services.
One of the next highest-paid nonprofit leaders in San Francisco is Kevin Winge, the executive director of Project Open Hand, which provides meals and other services to people living with AIDS and other illnesses.
According to the agency, Winge's total compensation last year was $203,395, or about 2.1 percent of the nonprofit's $9.7 million budget.