September 18, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Some 271 charities and 48 foundations provided data for The Chronicle’s annual examination of nonprofit pay.
The Chronicle sought compensation data from charities on its Philanthropy 400, the annual list of nonprofits that raise the most money in private donations, and from foundations with the largest assets from The Chronicle’s survey of grant makers.
The newspaper asked each organization to complete a survey and provide its most recent informational returns. The survey asks for more detail on bonuses and fringe benefits than the Internal Revenue Service requires charities and foundations to provide on the tax forms.
The Chronicle gathered information on each organization’s top executive, as well as the highest-paid employee other than the top executive. However, readers should be aware that turnover in those two jobs—and one-time payments, even in one person’s pay—may skew the information in year-to-year comparisons.
‘Too Long to Wait’
Getting up-to-date salary data from nonprofits has grown more challenging due to changes the IRS made in 2008 in the rules for filing informational tax returns. Most organizations declined to provide information for 2010, because they have yet to file their returns for that year, which they are not requiredby law to do until later. To show a two-year comparison for most groups, The Chronicle had to rely mainly on data from 2008 and 2009. The 2010 data came from 137 organizations (including 17 foundations); 182 organizations provided information for 2009, which can be found on The Chronicle’s Web site.
Many charities won’t be required to file their returns containing 2010 pay information until 2012. Some observers say that even though charities are not required to disclose data about salaries soon after the year ends, they should do so voluntarily.
“I think it’s too long to wait,” says Susan Lerner, head of Common Cause New York. “It needs to be more timely in an age of Internet accessibility.”
Ms. Lerner adds that having such information available soon after the close of the year is good donor relations: “You want your donors to feel that you are credible, transparent, above board.”
Ms. Lerner said her organization does not list pay of its executives on its Web site but makes the information available when someone requests it.
A searchable database of the information The Chronicle collected on pay of nonprofit executives is available at http://philanthropy.com/compensation.
The Chronicle’s survey on executive pay was compiled by Noelle Barton, Peter Bolton, and Marisa López-Rivera, with assistance from Caitlin Harrison.
