Taxpayer Philanthropy: Nonprofit pays Michelle Obama aide $700k

BALTIMORE (The Center Square) — A former policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama was paid nearly $700,000 in total compensation last year despite revenue to the taxpayer-funded refugee resettlement organization plummeting by nearly $130 million, an investigation by The Center Square found.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah is the CEO of Baltimore-based Global Refuge, a faith-based nonprofit which received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants from the State and Health and Human Services departments since 2021.

In 2025, she made $686,000, a 2% drop from the $699,000 she made the year before. That compares to a 44% drop in the nonprofit’s revenue during the same time, from $304.3 million in 2024 to $170.4 million last year.

O’Mara Vignarajah received a $172,963 bonus in 2024, in addition to a base salary of $526,536. She received no bonus in 2025, but her base salary rose to $686,000, according to the nonprofit’s tax filings.

“That’s troubling,” Steven Balsam, professor of accounting at the Fox Business School at Temple University, told The Center Square after the wire service detailed information in the nonprofits tax filings. “A cynic could say the bonus was transferred to compensation. You gotta wonder how the board of trustees justified the (salary) increase.”

Timothy Young, Global Refuge’s director of public relations, did not return two voicemails and an email for comment, while Chief Communications Officer Erin Taylor did not return a voicemail.

CEO pay outpaces revenue

Formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Global Refuge works primarily with displaced residents of Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Syria in the United States. Last year, the nonprofit reported it resettled 7,800 refugees, including Afghans eligible for special immigrant status because of their work supporting U.S. forces, and unaccompanied minors. In addition, it provided community-based management to 8,860 children and families.

O’Mara Vignarajah, 47, is a lawyer who served as senior advisor at the State Department under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. In 2015, she was named policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama. She was hired by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, noting that when she was an infant, her family fled Sri Lanka on the brink of civil war.

According to O’Mara Vignarajah’s biography, at the State Department “she coordinated development and implementation of multiple programs including those concerning refugees and migration, engagement with religious communities, the legal dimensions of U.S. foreign policy, and regional issues relating to Africa and the Middle East.”

Editor’s Note: This story is part of an ongoing investigation into government spending on nonprofits. There has been a lot of controversy over NGO and other nonprofit funding so The Center Square decided to dig into the data to determine which nonprofits serve legitimate needs and which are a waste or misuse of taxpayer money.

The nonprofit’s 17-member board includes Lutheran, nonprofit and business leaders. The board is responsible for setting the CEO’s compensation, using an outside consulting firm and compensation surveys to inform its decisions. Board member Lee Williams and former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Pepito couldn’t be reached for comment, while former Chief Financial Officer Hannibal L. Brumskine II did not return two emails seeking an interview.

The nonprofit’s revenues stayed at $63 million in her first two years on the job, in 2019 and 2020, but they shot up after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Global Refuge’s revenue increased to $114.6 million in 2021 and to $232.8 million the following year. Most of the funding was the result of federal grants from the State Department and Health and Human Services. It received $154.8 million in federal funding last year.

That represented a decrease from nearly $300 million that Global Refuge received in 2024. On September 25, the White House noted that President Trump asked Congress to cancel $2.1 million appropriated to the nonprofit.

“CEO Krish Vignarajah was one of the most prominent advocates for illegal aliens crossing the southern border, appearing frequently on MSNBC,” according to an administration statement.

The proposed cancellation came as Global Refuge’s revenue remained substantially higher than it was before the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Between 2019 and last year, revenue increased 170%, while O’Mara Vignarajah’s total compensation rose 196%, from $232,000 to $686,000.

Global Refuge reported $154.4 million in government grants in 2025. That accounted for about 91% of its $170.4 million in total revenue.

Nonprofit CEO pay by comparison.

The heads of two refugee nonprofits more modest increase reported compensation despite increasing their revenue.

HIAS Inc. held the total compensation of its President and CEO, Mark Hetfield, at $369,000 last year, an uptick of 2.7% from 2019. The nonprofit’s revenue surged 93%, to $107 million last year from $55.6 million in 2019.

The International Rescue Committee boosted the pay of its Director, CEO, and President, David Miliband, by 14%, to $1.1 million last year from $967,000 in 2019. Its revenue rose to $1.3 billion last year from $729.5 million, a 78% spike.

Balsam said he was not surprised by O’Mara Vignarajah’s total compensation last year.

“When you look at CEOs of nonprofits, that’s not unusual,” he said. “Quite honestly, there’s a lot who make an excess of $1 million a year.”

Nor, Balsam said, was O’Mara Vignarajah’s previous lack of experience as a nonprofit head.

“For most CEOs of nonprofits and for-profit companies, that’s their first job as a leader,” he added. “Maybe she got federal grants because of her connections, which are really important, especially in the Biden administration.”