How Much Less Do Nonprofit CEOs Get Paid Than For-Profit CEOs?

Nonprofit CEOs may play an invaluable role in changing the world, but they still make less than their for-profit counterparts. The average nonprofit CEO makes a little more than $120,000 a year, according to the 2016 Charity CEO Compensation Study by Charity Navigator.

The exact figure is $123,362, taken from an analysis of tax filings by 4,587 charities within their database. (That's a median amount; mean-based averages aren’t reliable for salary estimations because they can be skewed by extremely high or low numbers.) It doesn’t account for traditionally small, cash-strapped organizations or emerging startups. As the fine print states, only groups consistently reporting a half-million dollars in public support and more than $1 million in revenue were included.