Salary Gap Is Shrinking for Female Charity CEO’s, Survey Finds

Although female charity heads continue to be paid less than their male counterparts, the

compensation gap is shrinking at all but the smallest charities, according to a survey of 68,000 organizations by GuideStar, a nonprofit organization that aims to make charities’ financial information available to the public.

At charities with budgets of more than $50-million, men in the top job made 37 percent more than women, better than the 46-percent gap found in GuideStar’s 2002 report, while organizations with budgets of $25-million to $50-million had a gap of 5 percent, compared with the 24-percent difference between male and female CEO salaries in the previous report.

However, at charities with budgets of $250,000 or less, female CEO’s received 18 percent less than men, compared with the 14-percent gap in the 2002 report.

In addition to earning less than male executives, female executives are more likely to run smaller charities. Women head about 54 percent of charities with budgets of less than $1-million, while 24 percent of groups with budgets of more than $5-million are run by women.

Those findings were included in the “2003 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report,” which was based on charities’ 2001 informational tax returns. Though the returns, known as Forms 990, do not require executives to report their gender, GuideStar staff members said they were able to determine the gender of more than 80 percent of the executives by looking at their names.

Other Jobs

Gender played a role not only in chief executives’ salaries, but also in those of many other nonprofit workers, the report said.

Typically, the top posts in the departments of development, education, finance, and programs had smaller gaps in pay at medium-size charities — those with operating costs between $1-million and $10-million — than at the smallest and largest charities. For example, men who held the top education position at charities with budgets of less than $250,000 were paid 106-percent more than women, with men earning a median of $51,726 and women earning a median salary of $25,000, meaning that half made less and half made more.

Among those who held the top education posts at charities with budgets between $2.5-million and $5-million, on the other hand, women earned about 3 percent more than men with similar jobs. Men in the top education positions at charities with budgets of more than $50-million made 20 percent more than women in similar posts.

Geography and Mission

The report also included information on the compensation at different kinds of charities, as well as compensation figures by geographic location.

Compensation varies greatly by the mission a charity pursues. For example, executives at animal-related charities with budgets between $500,000 and $1-million earned a median salary of $53,759, compared with executives at medical-research charities, whose median salary at that budget range was $84,163.

Disparities between salaries typically grew along with the budget of the charity. The median salary for executives at arts charities with annual budgets larger than $5-million was $206,366, 120 percent more than executives at charities that deal with nutrition, such as food banks or Meals on Wheels, who earned a median salary of $93,924.

Geographic location does not seem to affect compensation practices as much as gender or type or size of a charity.

While chief executives at charities in Ann Arbor, Mich., that had budgets of $500,000 or less were paid a median salary of $45,215, executives at the same size organization in New York City earned a median of $46,934. Likewise, executives at housing or shelter charities with budgets between $1-million and $5-million in the Portland, Ore.-Vancouver, Wash., metropolitan region earned a median salary of $70,034, slightly less than executives at housing or shelter charities in Chicago, who had a median salary of $70,499.

GuideStar’s report costs $299 if it is sent by e-mail; a CD-ROM version is $339. Nonprofit groups that register as participants with GuideStar and provide information about their programs to be published on the organization’s Web site receive a 50-percent discount. Reports on salary data in specific states or regions can also be purchased. An order form is available on the GuideStar Web site at http://www.guidestar.org, or contact GuideStar customer service at 427 Scotland Street, Williamsburg, Va. 23185; (800) 421-8656; npocompensation@guidestar.org.