How this works
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is computed from IRS Form 990, 990-EZ, and 990-PF returns, the annual filings nonprofits make to the federal government and which are public record. Lucido reads the compensation reported on those returns. Nothing here is survey data, and no individual is ever named.
Executive roles are quoted directly
The IRS requires an organization to list its officers and key employees, by role and amount, on every return. For those roles Lucido has something close to a census, so the range is the filed distribution itself: a quarter of organizations pay below the 25th percentile figure and a quarter pay above the 75th.
Roles below the executive tier are modeled
Form 990 only requires listing employees paid above a reporting threshold, so a program or operations director appears on a return mainly when the pay was high enough to be reportable. Quoting those filings directly would describe the best-paid holders of the role rather than the role. The range is built instead from the measured ratio of that role’s pay to its employer’s own payroll per employee, applied to the median payroll of organizations the size you chose. Ranges produced this way are labelled as estimates wherever they appear.
Some titles get no range, and more data would not change that
A board seat is governance, not a job: the most common amount paid for one is zero, so a posting range would be a category error. Former officers, institutional trustees, and filings with no identifiable role are set aside for the same kind of reason. These roles are not offered above:
Board chair · Board member · Board president · Board secretary · Board treasurer · Board vice chair · Board vice president · Former officer, director, or trustee · Institutional trustee · Officer (unspecified) · Secretary (corporate officer) · Unclassified
Pay ranges in job postings
Colorado requires employers to include a good-faith pay range in every job posting, and California, Washington, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland, and Minnesota have posting requirements of their own. What each law asks for differs, and this page is not legal advice. What it gives you is a number sourced from public filings that you can point to when someone asks where your range came from.
Want the underlying filings, organization by organization? Search Lucido