Highlights of the 2002 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report

GuideStar has recently released its second annual report on compensation in public charities. The 2002 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report, which draws exclusively on fiscal year 2000 Form 990 data from more than 65,000 public charities, examines compensation by gender, 14 job categories, 9 budget categories, and 378 program categories. Information is also reported by state and for 254 metropolitan statistical areas. Below are some highlights of the report.

More information about the report

Gender

As was the case in last year's report, which covered fiscal years 1998 and 1999, women generally earned significantly less than men. Overall, males had median compensation of $74, 609, or 31.2 percent more than the median for females ($56,885). In all job categories, median compensation of males exceeded that of females.

Compensation by Gender and Job Category
 

Female

Male

  
Job Category Number Median Salary Number Median Salary Gender Gap
CEO/Executive Director 23,091 $50,554 29,063 $70,820 40.1%
Top Administrative Position 2,063 $62,099 2,080 $75,443 21.5%
Top Business Position 492 $61,125 673 $74,750 22.3%
Top Development Position 1,357 $68,053 1,568 $78,705 15.7%
Top Education/Training Position 246 $62,754 339 $72,923 16.2%
Top Facilities Position 33 $64,310 343 $69,321 7.8%
Top Financial Position 3,163 $61,716 5,557 $82,040 32.9%
Top Human Resources Position 480 $70,606 605 $90,728 28.5%
Top Legal Position 238 $79,092 489 $89,002 12.5%
Top Marketing Position 335 $70,109 452 $79,695 13.7%
Top Operations Position 904 $75,630 1,650 $94,873 25.4%
Top Program Position 1,137 $59,975 1,426 $65,951 10.0%
Top Public Relations Position 211 $69,387 288 $77,614 11.9%
Top Technology Position 178 $71,096 820 $85,837 20.7%
Source: 2002 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report

To some degree, this disparity can be explained by the difference in the size of organizations at which men and women work. Of the 34,857 females in the report, 48.0 percent worked at organizations with budgets of $1 million or less, whereas only 32.1 percent of males worked at nonprofits of that size. On the high end, 22.9 percent of the females worked at organizations with budgets greater than $5 million, versus 38.5 percent of males. Even when controlling for the size of organization, however, women still earned less. As the table below shows, male CEOs at every budget level out-earned their female counterparts in FY 2000.

Compensation by Gender and Budget Size
 

Female

Male

  
Budget Size Number Median Salary Number Median Salary Gender Gap
$250,000 or less 5,977 $31,159 4,841 $36,274 16.4%
$250,000-$500,000 4,493 $41,487 3,787 $48,863 17.8%
$500,000-$1,000,000 4,182 $52,403 4,253 $60,000 14.5%
$1,000,000-$2,500,000 4,010 $64,953 5,455 $73,805 13.6%
$2,500,000-$5,000,000 1,976 $78,744 3,445 $89,500 13.7%
$5,000,000-$10,000,000 1,267 $91,179 2,793 $105,699 15.9%
$10,000,000-$25,000,000 759 $111,545 2,297 $135,937 21.9%
$25,000,000-$50,000,000 222 $143,188 890 $175,913 22.9%
More than $50,000,000 205 $186,088 1,302 $271,032 45.6%
Source: 2002 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report

Generally, male CEOs also earned more regardless of organization type. In the 114 program/budget categories with sufficient numbers of both gender to make meaningful comparisons, women earned more than men in only 11 categories. In K-12 education organizations with budgets of $250,000 to $500,000, the median compensation for women CEOs was 17.1 percent higher than that for men, the largest disparity in favor of women. The largest difference in favor of males was in hospitals with budgets greater than $50 million, where the median for males was 63.1 percent higher.

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Suzanne E. Coffman
© Philanthropic Research, Inc.