Candid’s 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Report: Executive compensation is on the rise, but not for everyone 

While many nonprofit CEOs and other executives are looking forward to higher paychecks this year, this isn’t true across the board. Women leaders and those at religious institutions, animal-related organizations, and arts groups continue to have lower salaries.  

These are just some of the findings from Candid’s newly released 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Report, the most comprehensive study on executive compensation in the social sector. In addition to these insights, the report provides information to help nonprofits benchmark compensation to ensure competitive salaries for their employees. This year’s edition includes in-depth information on executive compensation from over 128,000 tax-exempt organizations and almost 210,000 individual observations based solely on IRS data for fiscal year 2022.   

Highlights from the 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Report include insights into the gender pay gap at organizations of different budget sizes, information on median executive compensation of non-CEO executive positions, and compensation based on program area. 

The gender pay gap widens at larger organizations 

The data is clear: We still have a long way to go when it comes to equitable compensation for women at the C-suite level, no matter the program area or region. 

However, the gender pay gap has been gradually declining since 2012 for all but the largest organizations (as measured by budget size). Women hold 58% of CEO positions at small and midsize nonprofits with budgets under $250,000 and earn 95 cents for every dollar male CEOs earn. Among nonprofits with budgets between $250,000-$500,000, women make up 61% of CEOs and earn 91 cents on the dollar.  

By contrast, at the largest organizations with budgets over $50 million, women represent less than one-third of CEOs and the gender pay gap has worsened since 2012. Female CEOs in this budget band now earn just 77 cents for every dollar male CEOs earn, compared to 82 cents in 2012. The median compensation for women CEOs is $129,000 below that of men in this group. 

Median compensation for top executive positions is increasing

This year’s report summarizes the data on the median compensation of top executives other than CEOs, providing a broader view of compensation across the sector. This includes the top finance, administrative, operations, and development positions. These executive positions tend to be higher than the median overall compensation for CEOs, because they often only exist at larger organizations that are likely to provide higher compensation.  

The chart below shows that median compensation for these executive positions has gradually increased between 2018 and 2022. The top operations and development positions have the highest median executive compensation, consistently landing above $150,000. 

Science and technology research institutes lead in executive pay

Similar to last year’s report, STEM organizations (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) continue to have the highest overall median executive compensation at $200,000, with health-related organizations a close second at $198,000. 

As in previous years, those with the lowest median executive compensation are religious institutions, animal-related organizations, and arts groups. At just $67,000, religious organizations offer the lowest median executive compensation out of all program areas. 

These are just some of the highlights from our latest report, which also includes executive pay across U.S. regions, median CEO compensation, and more in-depth analysis based on organization size. To learn more about the 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Report and download a sample, visit this webpage.