While median compensation for nonprofit CEOs increased overall in 2020, it decreased for the largest organizations, a report from Candid finds.

Based on data from the tax filings of nearly 88,000 organizations for fiscal year 2020, the 2022 Nonprofit Compensation Report (sample report, 20 pages, PDF) found that while median compensation for nonprofit CEOs increased by 4.7 percent overall, the figure fell 5.2 percent for organizations with budgets of more than $50 million. Additional findings indicate that, overall, most trends observed in 2019 continued into 2020. For example, even with a decline in the gender pay gap, the median compensation for female CEOs still trailed the median compensation for male CEOs in all budget groups ($45,764 vs. $50,360), and while the percentage of female CEOs grew in all budget groups, female representation fell as organization budget size increased. Science and technology research and health-related program areas had the highest median compensation, whereas religion and animal-related organizations had the lowest, and the District of Columbia had the highest median executive compensation, followed by New York and Massachusetts.

“We don’t know for certain that this is a direct impact of COVID-19, nor are we certain why larger nonprofits saw this decrease while smaller nonprofits saw an increase or held steady,” said Candid data services manager Reina Mukai. “It’s not the first time we’ve observed this trend, but it looks to be the largest decrease we’ve seen in quite some time. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.” 

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