How to Read Form 990 Compensation Data

Two Places Compensation Appears

Form 990 reports compensation in two separate sections that serve different purposes. Part VII is a summary table with totals for each person. Schedule J breaks those totals into components. Part VII tells you how much. Schedule J tells you how it breaks down.

Not everyone listed in Part VII will appear on Schedule J. Part VII captures a broad set of people involved in governance and management. Schedule J only kicks in for individuals above a specific compensation threshold. If you're looking at a particular person and don't see them on Schedule J, it usually means their total reportable compensation fell below $150,000.

Part VII: The Overview

Part VII, Section A is a table of the organization's leadership and highest-compensated staff. Our guide on whether nonprofit salaries are public covers who the IRS requires organizations to list. What matters here is understanding the columns.

For each person listed, you'll see their name, title, average hours per week, reportable compensation from the organization, reportable compensation from related organizations, and an estimated amount of other compensation (retirement contributions and nontaxable benefits). This is where you get the headline number for each individual.

The "reportable compensation" columns reflect what appeared on the person's W-2 or 1099. The "other compensation" column captures retirement plan contributions and benefits like employer-paid health insurance that don't show up on a W-2.

Schedule J: The Breakdown

Schedule J is required for individuals who receive over $150,000 in total reportable compensation from the organization and related organizations combined. Where Part VII only shows totals, Schedule J splits pay into five components: base compensation from W-2 or 1099 wages, bonus and incentive pay, other reportable compensation, retirement and deferred compensation, and nontaxable benefits like health insurance and housing.

This is where you find out whether a $300,000 figure is mostly salary or includes a large retirement payout. Without Schedule J, you'd only see the totals from Part VII with no way to understand what's driving the number.

When you look up an organization on Lucido, we show the Schedule J breakdown whenever it's available, so you can see the full picture without digging through the raw filing.

Why Total Compensation Can Be Misleading

Total compensation is not the same as take-home pay. Several common scenarios can make the number look very different from what you'd expect.

An executive might receive a one-time retirement contribution that inflates a single year's total far above their normal compensation. A departing leader might receive severance that shows up as a lump sum. At hospital systems and university-affiliated nonprofits, compensation is often split across a parent organization and one or more related entities, so you need to add the columns together to see the real total.

A mid-year hire or departure will also skew the picture, since the filing reports whatever was paid during the fiscal year, not an annualized amount. Before drawing conclusions about any individual's compensation, look at the Schedule J breakdown and check whether it's a typical year.

Fiscal Year vs. Calendar Year

Form 990 compensation timing can be counterintuitive. Part VII reports compensation based on the calendar year ending with or within the organization's tax year, not the fiscal year itself. So a nonprofit with a July-to-June fiscal year ending in 2024 reports Part VII compensation for calendar year 2023, meaning what appeared on each person's W-2 or 1099 that year.

This matters when comparing across organizations. Two nonprofits filing in the same year might be reporting compensation from different time periods depending on their fiscal year end dates. Keep this in mind when doing benchmarking, especially for roles where pay changed mid-year.

What You Won't Find

Form 990 does not report salaries for all employees. Only officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and the highest-compensated staff above the reporting thresholds appear. If someone earns less than $100,000 and isn't an officer or director, they won't be listed.

You also won't find a breakdown of hourly rate vs. salary, information about pay equity or salary bands within the organization, or details about independent contractors below the reporting threshold. Part VII, Section B lists the five highest-paid independent contractors over $100,000, but their information is more limited than what's available for employees.

For the data that is reported, Lucido makes it searchable and comparable across organizations, roles, and years.