Charity Executives’ Median Pay Is $42,000, Report Says

The median salary for chief executives of nonprofit organizations is $42,000 — less than what

private companies typically pay people in jobs carrying far less responsibility, such as computer programmers, construction managers, and dental hygienists, according to a new study by the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington. The institute’s analysis was based on informational tax returns filed by nearly 55,000 nonprofit groups in 1998.

Salaries varied widely depending on the size and type of nonprofit organization at which officers worked, according to the report. The median pay for the chief executive of a hospital, for example, was $169,000 — meaning that half made more and half made less — and at colleges it was $114,000. But the next highest median salary was $53,000, for executives at health organizations. The lowest median compensation was $24,000, for leaders of religious groups.

Institute researchers also found that higher-paying organizations were most likely to supplement their leaders’ salaries with benefit plans or deferred compensation. About three-fourths of all hospitals and colleges provided top executives with some sort of benefit package. Less than half of all other nonprofit groups offered such supplemental payments.

A little more than 10 percent of nonprofit groups offer chief executives expense accounts or other allowances to purchase housing, food, and clothing, the report also found. The greatest use of expense allowances was at hospitals, colleges, and religious organizations. About one-quarter of the groups in each of those categories covered some of their leaders’ expenses. The report found that such payments were particularly important for small religious organizations, many of which paid the lowest salaries among the groups studied. As a result, the researchers found, expense allowances added nearly 60 percent to their top executives’ salaries.

The report was written by Eric C. Twombly, a research associate at the institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, and Marie G. Gantz, a former research associate at the center. Free copies are available at the institute’s Web site: http://www.urban.org/periodcl/cnp/cnp_11.html, or by contacting its publications office at 2100 M Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037; (202) 261-5687.