Ben.

Firstly I want to say thanks for supporting us, for taking the time to read the blog and for your feedback.

As Fundraising Director of Greenpeace NZ I have a detailed understanding of how our finances are raised and distributed, that said I am not an expert on the exact pay rates of international staff i.e. the Rainbow Warrior crew so I will do my best to provide a satisfactory if not exact answer.

All Greenpeace offices contribute a percentage of their income to our international organisation, for the NZ office this amounts to about 20% and so given that our only source of income is from individual supporters like yourself, that means 20% of your donation goes to the international organisation. The international organisation is an office (not unlike the NZ one) which co-ordinates our campaigns globally (the thing that makes us such an effective campaigning group) and also covers the costs of our 3 ships and their accompanying crew. If you would like to look at the expenditure of our international organisation you can read their published accounts following the link below: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/annual-report-06

As I’m sure you are aware as an organisation going on potentially dangerous expeditions e.g. the Southern Ocean we need to employ a professional crew. That said a large number of the positions are also filled by volunteers for instance the assistant cooks and the deckhands are all volunteers - this is the case for Kristin who’s profile you posted the message on. As I said I do not know the exact payrates of the crew but I think it is highly likely they are paid below the rates normally available to commercial skippers etc. This is the case for all of our campaigners, media people and other staff who work in our NZ office and join the crew when the ships are in NZ for a local campaign. Most of the ships crews I have met have been working for Greenpeace many years and often decades and their commitment is to the cause above all, none of them see their role as just a job and I can guarantee there are no free rides. The boat is a fully working ship and each crew member has the usual tasks associated with their roles and 24 hour watches as well as the additional role of giving tours and talks to supporters, school kids and others and taking part in organising the actions we are so known for. This means whilst on board they get almost no time off, including weekends and evenings. The poor old Rainbow Warrior is getting very much past her sell by date (50 years old!) so I’m sure she takes more maintenance than most ships too; not to mention the extra work involved in recycling everything and making sure everything we do is as eco-friendly as possible on board! The crew work 3 months on with no scheduled time off and then have 3 months off when they can return home, the proviso being they spend 1 month of that assisting the local Greenpeace office however they can. The perks are that they do get all their meals provided for them and our current cook is a fab indian cook so it was definitely a real perk to eat his food! but straight after dinner each crew member has to do their own dishes, mop the mess room floor etc. and all cleaning duties etc. are rostered for the whole crew.

I hope this at least rests your mind at ease that we are spending your donation where it should be - on campaigning. The amount that goes from your donation to the crews pay would make up less than 0.1% of your donation. All of our finances are published annually and we try to be as open as possible. We do look to attract quality and professional people which means we can’t rely solely on volunteers for all the work we do but we are very conscious those of us that are paid employees that we are greatly priviledged to be able to earn a living doing something we feel so passionately about. On a personal note knowing how hard it is for us to raise funds and given that many of our supporters are on low incomes I take very seriously our responsibility to spend your money wisely; you can be sure every effort has been made to spend your money where it can have the greatest impact in terms of protecting our environment.

Maybe one day you would like to join one of our crews….?? You can apply online if you would ever been keen to head off to sea in a cronky old boat with a bunch of crazy environmentalists

Ben.