Nonprofit Salary Surveys and Data Sources Compared

Data as of: workforce, BLS OEWS May 2025 (aged to Oct 2026); executive, Form 990 filings, data updated November 6, 2026. · Last updated October 23, 2026

Nonprofits get salary data from four kinds of sources: federal wage statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports built from IRS Form 990 filings, commercial compensation databases, and surveys of nonprofit employers run by recruiting firms, universities and associations. They differ in which jobs they cover, where their numbers come from, how often they update and how they are sold, so the right source depends on the pay decision in front of you.

This page sets out those facts for each source, as each provider publishes them. Where a provider does not publish a fact, the table says "not published".

Where do nonprofits get salary data?

Federal wage statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys employers about pay by occupation and publishes the results free. It covers nearly every occupation, in every state and metro area, but it does not ask about job level or organization budget.

Because the federal data is organized by occupation, it can also show how widely the market pays for the same role; see our research on pay range width by role family.

Form 990 filings. Nonprofits report pay for officers, directors, trustees, key employees and other highly compensated employees on IRS Form 990. Reports built from these filings cover leadership roles at named organizations. They are the usual source for executive pay, and say little about the rest of the org chart.

Commercial databases. Compensation data companies combine employer-reported data and public sources into licensed software, usually sold by subscription.

Employer surveys. Recruiting firms, universities and associations survey nonprofits in a region or field about what they pay. They report the jobs nonprofits actually hire for, from the organizations that answer.

What does each salary data source cover?

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)

OEWS produces employment and wage estimates every year for about 830 occupations, for the nation, each state, and metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. The estimates come from a survey of employers: the May 2025 estimates draw on six semiannual panels collected over three years from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments. Everything BLS publishes is in the public domain, so the data is free to use with credit to BLS. OEWS reports occupations, not job levels or organization budgets, so it needs adjusting for level and budget before it can set a range.

Candid's Nonprofit Compensation Report

Candid's report covers 14 executive leadership positions, from the CEO or executive director to the top financial, program, HR, legal and technology positions. The 2026 edition draws on Form 990 and 990-EZ filings for fiscal year 2024 from nearly 120,000 nonprofits; Candid describes it as based on IRS data, not surveys. The report page does not publish its price, and Candid does not state a publication schedule; the 2026 report is the 26th edition. See how CauseComp and Candid compare.

ERI's Nonprofit Comparables Assessor and Salary Assessor

ERI's Nonprofit Comparables Assessor presents compensation data from IRS Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF for 55 executive positions across 600 industry sectors, with peer grouping by subsector, geography, date and size. Its Salary Assessor draws on employer-reported compensation data for more than 35,800 job titles in more than 10,500 locations. ERI states that new datasets are released every six weeks across its platform, and its help pages say the Comparables Assessor's database is updated each quarter. Pricing is not published; both products are sold through a demo and quote. See how CauseComp and ERI compare.

Careers In Nonprofits and PNP

Careers In Nonprofits and its PNP brand publish an annual nonprofit salary report. The 2026 edition reports salaries for 44 positions in 5 operating budget categories, from a survey of 751 nonprofit leaders conducted in August and September 2025. Respondents were concentrated in the New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago metro areas, with a smaller share in the San Francisco Bay Area. Figures are salaries only, without benefits or bonuses, shown as median salary ranges. The report is a free PDF download.

ASU Lodestar Center

The ASU Lodestar Center's Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits Report covers nonprofits in Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties in Arizona, with pay for more than 50 position titles and findings on retirement, insurance and paid time off. It is built from a survey of nonprofits in those counties and is published every two years; the 2026 report, the 10th edition, was published in May 2026. Nonprofits that complete the survey receive one complimentary license; others buy the report.

Regional and association surveys

Many regions and professional fields have their own salary survey, run by a nonprofit association, a university center or a recruiting firm. The ASU Lodestar report above is one example. Their scope, method, schedule and price are set by each publisher, so read each one's methodology page before relying on it.

CauseComp

CauseComp covers both executive and workforce roles. Executive benchmarks are modeled from Form 990 compensation records (Schedule J and Part VII) and served as filed, unless you choose to project them forward. Workforce benchmarks cover 850+ roles from BLS wage data across ~390 metros, at five career levels, with a nonprofit and private-sector toggle, 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles, and an Excel export. Workforce wages are aged to the current period on the BLS Employment Cost Index, and the data is refreshed quarterly. The method is on the methodology page, and plans are on the for organizations page.

Which salary data source fits which pay decision?

Setting ranges for the whole organization. You need every job, priced for your metro and, for some jobs, against private employers. Federal wage data and the products built on it cover that breadth. How to set salary ranges at a nonprofit walks through each step.

Setting executive pay. The board needs comparable organizations, named and matched on budget, sector and location. Sources built from Form 990 filings provide that. The public /salaries/ pages show national and state Form 990 medians for leadership roles such as the Director of Development and the Director of Programs.

Data like this supports, but does not by itself establish, a board's rebuttable presumption of reasonableness under IRC §4958 (intermediate sanctions), which 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.

Pricing a role in one city or one field. A regional or association survey reports what local nonprofits say they pay, for the jobs they actually hire for.

Using more than one source is common practice for important decisions. When two sources disagree, check their vintages and their definitions of pay before you average them.

What should we check before relying on a salary survey?

• Vintage. When was the pay measured, and has it been aged to the current period?
• Sample. How many organizations answered, and how were they chosen?
• Geography. Does it report your metro, or only your state or the nation?
• Sector and size. Does it separate nonprofits from other employers, and organizations of your budget from much larger ones?
• Pay definition. Base salary only, or total cash including bonuses?
• Job match. Is the job matched on duties and level, or on title alone?

How does CauseComp compare with other sources?

Each comparison sets out scope, data, currency and price side by side: CauseComp vs. ERI, CauseComp vs. Candid, CauseComp vs. Cause IQ, CauseComp vs. ProPublica and CauseComp vs. RoundPaper. All five are listed on the comparisons page.

Try Professional free for 7 daysTry Professional free for 7 days, then $448 on day 7 ($349 Board Report plus $99 first month) and $99/month after.

Looking for a report rather than one role's figure? Read the 2026 Nonprofit Compensation Report, CauseComp's analysis of IRS Form 990 compensation filings.

Questions HR directors ask about nonprofit salary data

Sources

• IRC §4958 (taxes on excess benefit transactions)
• IRS: Intermediate sanctions
• IRS: Instructions for Schedule J (Form 990)
• IRS: Instructions for Form 990
• BLS: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS)
• BLS: Employment Cost Index (ECI)
• BLS: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC)
• O*NET OnLine
• BLS: OEWS technical notes, May 2025
• BLS: Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2025 (news release, May 15, 2026)
• BLS: Linking and copyright information
• Candid: Nonprofit Compensation Report
• Candid: 2026 Nonprofit Compensation Report press release
• ERI: Nonprofit Comparables Assessor
• ERI: Salary Assessor
• ERI: Comparables Assessor help, database updates
• Careers In Nonprofits and PNP Staffing Group: 2026 Nonprofit Salaries and Staffing Trends
• ASU Lodestar Center: 2026 Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits Report