“Approximately 10 to 20 nonprofit executive directors/CEOs in New Hanover County have salaries above $100,000,” said Jane Kendall, president of N.C. Center for Nonprofits, a Raleigh-based organization that serves as a resource for nonprofit board members and staff.
Nonprofit organizations are required to file federal forms disclosing financial information.
Kendall said the nonprofit organizations compensating their executives at this level “tend to be large and complex, with annual budgets of $2 million to more than $10 million.”
A recent study conducted by the center indicates that the average pay for executive directors of nonprofit organizations in Wilmington area is $51,950, below the statewide average of $60,000. Kendall said various factors play in determining the salary of nonprofit executives, including overall budget size and the type of background required for each job.
Organizations with an overall budget size of $1 million to $2 million have a median compensation for executives of $73,730, those with a budget of $2 million to $5 million have a median salary of $84,954, those with a total budget of $5 million to $10 million have a median salary of $117,652.
“There are just over 300 nonprofits statewide that have budgets of $10 million or more,” Kendall said. Such organizations pay out a median salary of $151,197 for executives, she said.
Both Kendall and Chuck McLean, vice president of research for Guidestar, a company that collects and publicizes information on nonprofit organizations countrywide, agree that hospitals and educational organizations like colleges, universities and private schools tend to have the highest salaries.
According to a recent Guidestar compensation report McLean created using data from 2009, the Wilmington area had 77 nonprofit executives.
“Most of them were CEOs, but there were some CFOs. Twenty-seven of those 77 made more than $100,000,” McLean said.
McLean said, however, that report only contained about half of the public charities due to fact that not all of the organizations had submitted IRS form 990s by time he started his report.
Date posted: November 14, 2011
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