Nationwide
Establish the broad distribution
Use the national table as a reference point for the selected role and organization criteria.
Nonprofit compensation by state
Compare nonprofit salaries with geographic context.
Build a nationwide benchmark, then narrow the same role and financial criteria to a region, state, or county. Geographic comparisons help show when a national figure is too broad for a local decision.
Regional
Compare major U.S. regions
Review the same selected role across available regional populations without changing the core peer definition.
State and county
Focus on the relevant labor market
Narrow the report where enough observations exist and note when small samples limit what can be displayed.
How should nonprofit CEO salary by state be compared?
Keep the position and organization-size criteria consistent before interpreting geographic differences. Otherwise, a state difference may reflect a different mix of organization types or financial scale rather than location alone.
Small groups require caution
990Search suppresses detailed statistics for very small groups. Counts and percentile thresholds help users see when a result has limited support and should not be treated as a precise market rate.
For a specific filing, use the IRS 990 compensation search. For national research, start with the nonprofit salary database.