How can I research nonprofit leadership compensation?

You can look up what a nonprofit reports paying its leadership, and compare pay across organizations. This article covers where to find the data, how to ask for a comparison, and what the numbers do and don't represent.

What the data covers

All of it comes from organizations' IRS Form 990 filings, in two forms:

Leadership compensation (Form 990, Part VII). The people an organization puts on record — officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and its highest-paid staff. For each person: their title, the hours per week they report, compensation from the organization, compensation from related organizations, and other reported pay.

Organization-level payroll. The Salaries & Wages line from the organization's expense statement. This is the whole-organization figure — what the nonprofit spent on staff compensation overall, not just leadership.

Where to find it

Find the information on a nonprofit profile.

Each profile has a People tab showing the organization's reported personnel for a filing year:

• Year tabs — switch between filing years to see how leadership and pay changed over time
• Leadership table — officers, directors, trustees, and key employees, sorted by total compensation
• Staff table — the organization's highest-compensated employees
• Per-person detail — title, reported hours per week, compensation from the organization, compensation from related organizations, and other reported compensation

The Financials tab shows the organization-level payroll picture inside each filing's expense breakdown, including the Salaries & Wages line.

The People tab is a Pro feature. Free accounts see an upgrade banner in place of the tables. The Financials tab is available to everyone.

By asking a question

Profile pages show one organization at a time. Asking a question lets you reach across many organizations at once — to compare peers or calculate an average. For example:

• Who is the highest-paid executive at this organization?
• Compare CEO compensation across the five largest food banks in Washington state.
• What share of this organization's total expenses goes to salaries?
• What's the median executive director salary at community foundations, by asset size?

Comparing pay across a group of organizations

If you have a specific set of organizations in mind, building a list first is the most direct route.

1. Create the list. Open Nonprofit Lists from the GC Pro menu and create a new list — for example, "WA Food Banks." Enter Edit mode and use the search box to add each organization. Save.

2. Ask a question about the list. On the list page, select Ask AI, choose a reasoning depth (Standard is fine for a straightforward average), and type your question. For example:

What is the average reported executive compensation across the organizations on this list? Show me the highest-paid person at each organization and the overall average.

3. Refine from there. The answer opens as a conversation, so you can keep going:

• Use the median instead — one of these outliers is skewing the average.
• Limit it to CEOs and executive directors only.
• Compare that to each organization's total Salaries & Wages as a share of expenses.
• Which of these pays its leadership the most relative to its revenue?

Ask AI on a list is a Pro feature. Any signed-in user can view a shared list, but asking questions about one requires a subscription.

"Average salary" means two different things

Form 990 data supports two versions of this question, and they produce different numbers. It helps to be explicit about which one you want.

An average calculated from Part VII is an average of reported leadership pay — the people the organization names in its filing. It is not the average wage of everyone who works there.

What the data doesn't include

General staff salaries. Form 990 only names officers, key employees, and the highest-compensated staff. Pay for a program manager, a teacher, or a caseworker isn't in the public filing data.

Detailed bonus and benefit breakdowns. Schedule J detail isn't part of this data.

Recent hires or raises. Filings lag. The most recent year available is typically one to two years behind, so a change made this year won't appear until the next filing is released.

Data from very small organizations. Organizations that file the 990-EZ or 990-N report little or no compensation detail. Some organizations will legitimately have no salary data.

Reading the numbers accurately

A $0 row is usually accurate, not missing. Board members and trustees frequently serve unpaid. If you're calculating an average, it's often worth asking to exclude unpaid roles.

Check which compensation column you're reading. Someone paid through a related organization can look underpaid or overpaid if only one column is considered. The per-person detail separates compensation from the organization, compensation from related organizations, and other reported pay.

Compensation reads better in context. Because financial data is available alongside it, you can ask for pay as a share of expenses or revenue rather than looking at a salary figure on its own.

It's self-reported. Every number is what the organization reported to the IRS. Giving Compass structures that data; it doesn't audit it.

Troubleshooting

This organization shows no people or salaries. Smaller organizations that file the 990-EZ or 990-N report little or no compensation detail. Newer organizations may not have a processed filing yet, and recent changes won't appear until the next filing is released.

A salary figure looks wrong. The numbers mirror the organization's IRS filing for that year. Check the filing year shown in the People tab's year tabs, and check whether the compensation came from the organization or from a related organization.

Can I find out what a program manager or teacher earns? No. Form 990 only names an organization's officers, key employees, and highest-compensated staff. General staff salaries aren't in the public filing data.

I clicked Ask AI on my list and was asked to upgrade. Ask AI on lists is a Pro feature. Any signed-in user can view a public list, but asking questions about one requires a subscription.