What Candid's Nonprofit Compensation Report Covers, and When to Use It

Candid’s Nonprofit Compensation Report is one of the sources a board will find when it starts looking for what other nonprofits pay their executives. Now in its 26th edition, it gives pay statistics for nonprofit leaders, built from what organizations report to the IRS on Form 990.

Whether it suits your board depends on the question you’re asking and on who will be working with the report, since its license limits who may use it. This page goes through what the report covers and what its license allows, then compares it with a peer set built from the same filings. Every fact about the report comes from Candid’s own pages, each linked below.

Last reviewed October 25, 2026 · PeerSet publishes this comparison and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Candid.

What the report covers

The current edition, the 2026 Nonprofit Compensation Report, draws on 201,125 observations from 119,701 Forms 990 and 990-EZ filed for fiscal year 2024 by 501(c) organizations, which Candid describes as data from nearly 120,000 organizations. Private foundations, which file Form 990-PF, are not included.

The report gives its figures as statistics by category. The pages of Candid’s free sample show the count, average and percentiles for each position. It reports pay for 14 leadership positions, broken down by budget size, cause area and gender. It also reports pay by location, nationally, by state and in 285 metropolitan statistical areas. These are the positions in Candid’s words.

• CEO/Executive director
• Top administrative position
• Top business position
• Top development position
• Top education/training position
• Top facilities position
• Top financial position
• Top HR position
• Top legal position
• Top marketing position
• Top operations position
• Top program position
• Top PR/communications position
• Top technology position

How it measures pay

The report measures pay as total compensation, which Candid defines as Form 990 Part VII, Columns D, E and F added together, so its figures count more than salary. Column D is pay from the organization, Column E is pay from related organizations, and Column F is other compensation, such as deferred pay and nontaxable benefits. People with total compensation under $15,000 are left out.

Because it adds Columns E and F, the report’s figures for the same people are at least as high as a figure based on Column D alone. So if you set the report beside a source that uses Column D, compare the measures before you decide that one is high or low. If you use PeerSet, keep in mind that its figures are Column D only.

How much each cell shows depends on how many people are in it. A cell needs at least five observations to be shown. With fewer than 10, only the average and median are shown; with 10 to 20, the 25th and 75th percentiles are added; with more than 20, the 10th and 90th as well. That means a narrow cut, such as one position in one metro area, may show only an average and a median. Candid notes that where observations are few, the median is usually the most reliable figure.

The figures describe fiscal year 2024, since the report draws on every fiscal year 2024 return available to Candid on May 30, 2026. It also shows how pay changed for people who held the same position at the same organization the year before, based on 127,512 observations from 83,998 organizations.

Price and license

The report page doesn’t show a price. Instead, its “Get the report” button leads to a checkout that asks you to log in to a Candid account.

Candid’s license agreement sets out who may use the report and what may be done with it. A single-user report is for one person, or for one employee of an organization, while a multi-user report lets an organization authorize up to 25 of its employees. Authorized users must be employees, so independent contractors and other outside parties cannot be added. The license also covers only the edition you bought, not later ones. Under the license, neither the buyer nor any authorized user may “distribute, publish or copy the Compensation Report or any portion, extract, excerpt or summary thereof, or create any data compilation, summary or analysis to be sold or otherwise provided to any third party”. Publishing an extract of the report needs Candid’s written consent.

Consultants and other advisors whose work ends in an analysis for a client should read the license before planning client work around the report.

When Candid’s report fits

The report suits your board when these describe its situation.

• You want a national, state or metro view of pay for a position, by budget size or cause area, from one document.
• You want total compensation, with Columns D, E and F together.
• The people using it are your own employees, within the license.
• A single-year reference is enough, since the current edition covers fiscal year 2024 filings.

When a peer set fits

A peer set uses the same Form 990 filings but starts from your organization instead of from a category. Once you choose comparable organizations by sector, budget and location, the result lists each one with its reported pay. It can fit the question better when one of these is true.

• You want to show the board which organizations you compared against.
• Your mix of sector, budget and location is narrower than a report’s categories.
• An advisor is preparing the analysis for a client.

A board can also use both, setting pay from a peer set and checking it against a national report. The step-by-step guide to setting nonprofit executive compensation covers the full process, from choosing the organizations to the board’s vote.

The table below compares the report with a peer set built in PeerSet, our own tool.

Figures come from filings that organizations reported themselves; we have not verified them and do not guarantee they are accurate, complete or current. Informational only; not legal, tax or compensation advice.

The comparison of nonprofit compensation data sources sets Candid’s report beside other sources, including other peer-set tools. For Form 990 figures by budget size, see executive director and CEO salary by budget size.

PeerSet is not affiliated with or endorsed by Candid. Candid is a trademark of its owner.