Compensation Benchmarks for Nonprofits
Your board asked for comparables. Here is what to put in front of them.
A named peer set drawn from Form 990 filings, where your number sits, and the three things the regulation asks the minutes to show.
Plans from $49/month billed annually · One-time Board Report $349 · Cancel anytime · See plans & pricing →
The reasonableness question
The board asked, "Is this reasonable?" You need more than a guess.
Every nonprofit faces the same three moments: hiring an executive director, setting annual raises, and answering the board's reasonableness question at 990 time. The data to answer them exists — it's in 2.2M+ compensation records from public filings and federal wage surveys — but organized answers have meant either a static national PDF that doesn't fit your budget size and region, or a consultant engagement that costs more than the raise you're benchmarking.
What you get
Two products. One subscription. Your numbers, not a national average.
Compensation benchmarks for nonprofits — from the CEO to the whole staff — for organizations that need a market rate, not a five-figure comp study or a four-figure data subscription, and still have to get the number right.
What should your ED or C-suite earn?
Enter role, budget size, state, and sector — get percentile benchmarks (25th / median / 75th) modeled from 1,100,000+ Form 990 compensation records drawn from a corpus of 147,000+ filing organizations, served as filed unless you elect to project them forward. On Professional, build §4958 comparables sets from filings within the last three years and export a board-ready PDF for the comparability-data prong of your compensation committee's §4958 process.
Open Executive benchmarksPay for the other 95% of your staff.
Budget season, offer letters, pay-equity checks. 850+ roles from federal BLS wage data with a nonprofit / private-sector toggle, metro-level geography, and seniority tiers. Export to Excel and build your salary ranges in an afternoon.
Open Workforce benchmarksWorks with Claude
Just ask the question you actually have.
How it works
From a role to a board-ready number in three steps.
Describe the role.
Position, budget size, state or metro, sector.
Get your benchmark.
Percentiles calibrated to organizations like yours — not a national average.
Take it to the board.
Excel exports from Essential up, board-ready PDF on Professional — with the methodology documented on every page.
Why trust the numbers
Modeled, not averaged — and documented in the open.
IRS Form 990 and 990-EZ filings (Schedule J and Part VII) sourced directly from the IRS, BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics, the Employment Cost Index, and O*NET.
Estimates adjust for budget size, sector, geography, and filing-year drift — and you can project them to a year you choose.
Every report links to the full model documentation, and we publish our own analyses of the Form 990 corpus from the same data. See the methodology →
Who's behind CauseComp
Built by a compensation consultant, not just a data team.
CauseComp was built by the founder of RB Consulting Services — a career executive compensation consultant with two decades on both sides of the table, from S&P 500 compensation committees to nonprofits ranging from local organizations to global NGOs. Every benchmark reflects the discipline a board engagement demands: documented peer logic, transparent sources, numbers built to withstand scrutiny.
For the compensation committee
Reasonable compensation isn't a vibe. It's a process.
The IRS's intermediate sanctions rules (IRC §4958) put personal excise-tax exposure on executives and the board members who approve their pay. The rebuttable presumption of reasonableness requires comparable data, independent review, and contemporaneous documentation. CauseComp Professional generates the comparables set and documentation — the same data foundation a consultant would start from — for about a tenth of the cost of a comp study. Our 2026 nonprofit compensation report sets out what the filings show across sectors and budget sizes.
CauseComp provides data and documentation tools, not legal advice. Organizations should consult counsel on §4958 process questions.
See it first
See exactly what you'd get.
View a complete sample benchmark — a Chief Human Resources Officer at a $35M health-services organization — with the full percentile breakdown and report format. Then run your own numbers free: create an account (just an email) and get 2 lifetime workforce searches on us.
View the sample reportWhen you need a human
Some situations need a consultant.
Complex packages, multi-entity organizations, board disputes, IRS inquiries — when the software isn't enough, get in touch with a compensation consultant with decades of executive comp experience. Professional subscribers get their subscription credited toward a full engagement.
Get in touchQuestions
Answers before you sign up.
Where does the data come from?
Executive benchmarks: IRS Form 990 filings — the compensation disclosures nonprofits are required to file every year (Schedule J and Part VII, including 990-EZ filers) — sourced directly from the IRS. Workforce benchmarks: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage surveys (OEWS, ECI, ECEC) and O*NET. Estimates are modeled to your budget size, sector, and location. Workforce wages are aged to the current period on the BLS Employment Cost Index; executive figures are served as filed unless you elect to project them forward.
How current are the numbers?
The underlying filings and surveys refresh on their federal publication cycles. Every report shows its data vintage.
Is this a substitute for a compensation consultant?
CauseComp gives you the same data foundation a consultant would use, and for many organizations that's all they need. It isn't professional advice, and for complex situations we'll tell you honestly when you need a professional — you can book one directly through the site.
We're a small nonprofit. Do we need a subscription?
Not always. It depends on how often you'll need an answer. Essential is $49/month billed annually and covers staff benchmarks across 850+ roles plus executive estimates modeled to your budget size, sector, and location. If you have exactly one position to document and don't expect to look again, buy the one-time Board Report ($349) instead. If you change your mind within 90 days, the $349 is credited toward Professional.
Can our board use this to document the reasonableness process?
Professional's §4958 comparables sets and board-ready PDFs are built for the comparability-data prong of that process. Documented comparability data supports — but does not by itself establish — a board's rebuttable presumption of reasonableness under IRC §4958 (intermediate sanctions). The presumption also requires advance approval by an independent board body and contemporaneous documentation. CauseComp provides comparability data for informational purposes and does not provide legal or tax advice.
Compensation Benchmarks for Nonprofits.
An RB Consulting Services product.