Female Nonprofit Executives Still Paid Far Less Than Men (and More From Guidestar's Compensation Report)
On Tuesday, Guidestar released its 2016 Nonprofit Compensation Report. Now in its 16th edition, the annual study uses data from 96,242 Forms 990 to create a comprehensive snapshot of the nonprofit sector's compensation practices. It breaks down compensation by gender, program area, geography, budget size and just about every other metric imaginable.
Oh, and the full version clocks in at a breezy 4,297 pages.
That's a lot of information to digest—too much for 10 sittings, let alone one. So we thought we'd break out some of the highlights. Let's hit it:
Gender Pay Gap Stands
Guidestar's data shows that female CEOs make less than men at every budget level. The gap is relatively small at organizations with revenues less than $250,000, and scales up as revenues increase. Organizations with revenues of greater than $50 million had the largest pay gap, with female executives making, on average, nearly $100,000 less than men.
This is just about in line with the for-profit sector's gender pay gap. While the numbers vary based on source, Bloomberg found that female executives at S&P 500 companies make about 18 percent less than their male counterparts.
It's not all bad, though. The percentage of female CEOs has generally risen since 2004. And in seven of the nine budget segments Guidestar uses, median compensation for female executives increased at a higher rate than for males. Only the top two budget segments—greater than $50 million, and between $25 million and $50 million—still saw greater increases for men than for women, with the latter segment separated by just 0.1 percent.
Science Pays Most, Religion Least
Program area, unsurprisingly, plays a large part in compensation. Guidestar noted that large organizations and "areas associated with specialized knowledge" typically had the highest CEO pay. Science and Technology Research Institutes, Services led all program areas with $168,650 in median compensation, while Religion-Related, Spiritual Development ranked lowest, at $67,700.
Here's how the top five shook out:
And the bottom five (lowest first):
East Coast Pays Big
Want to know the median compensation for the top human resources position at nonprofits in Maine? It's in the report. Guidestar included detailed compensation data for nonprofits in every region of the U.S., broken down by position, number of positions and several other metrics. If you want all that, you'll have to pay for the full report.
For our purposes, we're going to focus on the data Guidestar provided on median CEO compensation for the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas by total number of nonprofits. (So, the metro areas with the most nonprofit organizations.)
Guidestar found that, of that group, Washington, D.C., had the highest median compensation, at $166,667, with New York ($147,075) and Boston ($121,094) rounding out the top three. Philadelphia ($113,305) and Baltimore ($110,098) ranked seventh and eighth, respectively, giving the East Coast five of the top-10 metro areas with the highest CEO compensation. California had three of the others—San Francisco (fourth), L.A. (fifth) and Oakland (ninth)—while Chicago (sixth) and Houston (10th) held the other two spots.
Adjusted for D.C. cost of living, though, Baltimore jumps into the top three ($154,865, adjusted) and New York and Philadelphia fall out of the top 10 entirely. The California metro areas take a hit, here, as well. San Francisco and L.A. drop out of the top 10, while Oakland falls to 10th. San Diego makes a small leap from 11th in the overall rankings to ninth in the adjusted rankings. Houston, something of a charity hotbed of late, jumps to fourth, with a $149,630 adjusted median income. Washington, D.C., of course, retains the top spot on the list.
