How does grantmaker CEO compensation compare with grantmaking? 

With the release of the Council on Foundations’ (COF) 2024 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report, we now have updated information about compensation at grantmaking organizations. Continuing with Candid’s supplemental exploration of CEO salaries and staff salaries compared to inflation, let’s take a look at how CEO pay stacks up against their organizations’ grantmaking dollars. 

While nonprofit organizations’ finances are regularly put under a microscope, grantmakers’ finances typically come under less scrutiny. Exploring the relationship between foundations’ CEO salaries (which count toward a foundation’s payout requirement) and their annual grantmaking can shed light on how resources are distributed within these organizations.  

For this analysis, we’ll focus on the reported total cash compensation (including salary, bonuses, and deferred compensation but excluding benefits) of CEOs/executive directors/presidents at non-operating private foundations—institutions that primarily exist to give grants rather than offer their own programs or services. The grant dollars are as reported by survey respondents.ⁱ  

For every grant dollar awarded, CEOs are paid a median 4¢ 

At nearly all the private foundations that responded to the COF survey, the ratio of CEO cash compensation to annual grantmaking was very small. In 2023, the median ratio for our sample was 0.04, meaning that for every $1 the organization granted, the CEO received compensation of 4¢. The mean (average) was slightly higher, meaning that a few well-compensated CEOs skewed the figures upward. The full range for the sample was 0.00 (for every $1 the organization grants, the CEO makes less than 1¢) all the way to a surprising 1.04 (the CEO took home more than the total grantmaking).ⁱⁱ 

In the graph below, we can see the distribution of the CEOs’ compensation on the x-axis compared to their organizations’ reported grantmaking up the y-axis. Each dot represents one CEO; the higher compensation-to-grantmaking ratios will be on the lower right side of the graph. 

CEO cash compensation commensurate with grantmaking is rare; just one organization paid its CEO more than their reported grantmaking and only four others reported a ratio of between 0.50 and 1.00. 

CEOs of family foundations and well-staffed foundations have lower compensation-to-grantmaking ratios 

The median and mean ratios are slightly lower for family foundations (0.04 and 0.07, respectively) than for other private foundations, such as independent foundations (0.05 and 0.08). Family foundations are typically funded by a single family, whose members also play a role in governance and management. The lower ratio aligns with other findings from our sample that family foundation CEOs receive less cash compensation compared with their peers at other private foundations. 

The more support staff a CEO has, the smaller the ratio of their pay to the organization’s grantmaking. When the CEO is the sole paid employee, the median and mean are both greater than 0.10; add at least one additional staff member, and they fall below 0.10. 

For women CEOs, median compensation-to-grantmaking ratios are lower but mean ratios are higher than for men 

The COF survey demonstrated that male CEOs tend to make more than their female counterparts, and that’s reflected in the median ratios to grantmaking (0.05 and 0.04, respectively). But the mean ratio for men is lower than that of women (0.07 and 0.08, respectively), suggesting a few women CEOs received compensation of a significantly higher ratio to grantmaking, skewing their distribution higher. 

Breaking down compensation-to-grantmaking ratios by the CEOs’ race/ethnicity, the median for white and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) CEOs is the same: about 5¢ to $1 of grantmaking. But based on the mean (0.08 for white CEOs vs. 0.07 for BIPOC CEOs), we see that a few white CEOs with high ratios are included in the calculations. 

CEOs with 15+ years’ tenure have higher compensation-to-grantmaking ratios 

Finally, looking at how long the CEO has been in that role within their organization, we see there isn’t a wide variation by tenure—until we get to those who have been CEO for more than 15 years. The medians aren’t much higher than their greener counterparts, but the means indicate there are a few leaders with very high compensation-to-grantmaking ratios. 

Total CEO compensation will depend on many factors, including day-to-day responsibilities, tenure, experience, the organization’s financial situation, meritorious service, local cost of living, or cross-sector talent competition. CEO pay will vary among organizations which award similar levels of grantmaking, driving variation in compensation-to-granmaking ratios. Future research could further investigate the relationship between CEO compensation and institutional responsibilities, as well as examine the nature of executive leadership’s role in advancing a foundation’s grantmaking mission. 

Endnotes 

ⁱ Methodology 

In 2024, 1,006 grantmakers participated in the Council on Foundations Salary & Benefits survey. While not a representative sample of institutional funders, it’s one of best avenues for detailed exploration and benchmarking of salaries. The survey was fielded in spring of 2024, so the last complete fiscal year from which to draw the relevant data will be the one ending in 2023. This analysis is based on 447 private, non-operating grantmakers that reported the total cash compensation (including salary, bonuses, deferred compensation, and other cash remuneration; the figure does not include benefits like medical insurance or retirement contributions) for that year. 

Private foundation survey response summary information for 2023
	Minimum	25th %	Median	Mean	75th %	Maximum
Full-time CEO compensation	35,568	185,000	271,663	324,800	386,000	1,732,428
Total grant dollars awarded	73,990	2,479,800	5,907,572	22,115,907	15,014,455	596,000,000
Ratio of compensation to grant dollars awarded	0.00	0.02	0.04	0.08	0.09	1.04

n=447 

Of the identified private foundations included in this analysis, one outlier was removed whose reported ratio was more than 50 times larger than the next largest value. 2023 was the first fiscal year in which this organization filed a 990-PF, and this nascent state will almost assuredly not represent their longer-term operations. 

ⁱⁱ It’s important to remember that while private foundations have an IRS payout requirement of 5% of their assets, that value is calculated on a number of factors. For more information about payout rules, see Candid Learning’s Knowledge base page on the topic.