Where the middle 50% lands.
Half earn between $53k and $209k. That band is the interquartile range. The 90th percentile sits at $415k, roughly 3.4 times the median. That upper tail is where the largest organizations cluster.
| Percentile | Total comp | Means |
|---|---|---|
| 90th | $414,837 | Top 10% of earners |
| 75th | $208,682 | 25% earn more than this |
| 50th · median | $122,500 | The typical executive |
| 25th | $52,752 | 25% earn less than this |
| 10th | $19,854 | 10% of executives earn less than this |
Bigger budgets, bigger paychecks.
Median executive pay rises with organization revenue. Each band shows the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile of top-executive pay for social science nonprofits in that revenue range.
| Revenue band | 25th | Median | 75th | Orgs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $30k | $65,991 | $114k | 221 |
| $1M – $10M | $119k | $171,808 | $253k | 166 |
| $10M – $100M | $312k | $426,067 | $545k | 41 |
| $100M – $500M | $854k | $1,022,915 | $1.2M | 7 |
Pay varies by state.
District of Columbia pays $136,006 more than the national median across social science nonprofits.
Benchmark a specific Social Science role
Drill into median pay for individual leadership roles within social science nonprofits.
Social Science board & trustee pay norms
14% of social science nonprofits pay at least one board member or trustee, with a typical per-person payment of $46,060 across a median board of 5 paid members.
Social science research organizations, think tanks, policy institutes, and academic societies. Covers economics, political science, sociology, and interdisciplinary research. There are 771 social science organizations in our database with compensation data from IRS Form 990 filings. Use the table below to browse them, or sort by revenue, location, or number of reported executives.
Organizations in Social Science
771 organizations · Page 1 of 16