1. Start with public IRS Form 990 records
990Search organizes compensation disclosed in public Form 990 filings. Those filings can identify officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and other highly compensated people. The available fields and reporting requirements vary by filer and year, which is why every report keeps its underlying edition and selected criteria visible.
The source dataset is accessed through a read-only connection. Customer accounts, purchases, and saved research remain in a separate commercial database.
2. Normalize reported job titles
Nonprofits use many titles for similar work. A chief executive might be reported as Executive Director, President and CEO, Chief Executive Officer, or another variation. 990Search maps reported titles into standardized position groups while preserving the source title for individual-record research.
A broad title rule increases the count but can mix unlike work. A narrow rule improves specificity but may omit legitimate variations. This classification choice is one reason independent reports may not match exactly.
3. Define the comparison group
The report builder applies the selected organization type, charity category, annual budget, assets, geography, report edition, and position groups. These filters should reflect the decision being made. A nationwide result can establish context, while regional, state, and county results can show how the same definition behaves in narrower labor markets.
Budget bands are mutually exclusive. Selecting one band should not silently include organizations from every other size range.
4. Calculate the distribution
For each standardized role, 990Search produces the number of reported positions, arithmetic average, median, and available 10th, 25th, 75th, and 90th percentiles. Average is emphasized because it matches the primary presentation used by the comparison report, while median and percentiles reveal the shape of the distribution.
Counts are displayed with every row. Detailed results are suppressed for very small groups, and outer percentiles require more observations than central statistics.
5. Read the result with its limitations
Form 990 compensation is reported after the fact. It is not a real-time salary survey, and a filing year is not necessarily the year in which a board is making its decision. Titles may be incomplete, duties can differ, related-organization compensation can complicate comparisons, and a filtered group may still contain organizations that are not operationally identical.
A 990Search report is research evidence—not a conclusion about what any individual must be paid. Boards should document why the selected comparables and criteria are appropriate for their circumstances.
Frequently asked methodology questions
Where does 990Search compensation data come from?
990Search uses compensation information reported in publicly available IRS Form 990 filings. The research database is maintained separately from customer and billing information.
Why can two nonprofit compensation reports produce different numbers?
Results can differ because of filing-year cutoffs, amended returns, compensation fields, title classification, organization filters, duplicate handling, and whether a statistic counts people, filings, or organizations.
How does 990Search handle small peer groups?
Detailed statistics are suppressed when too few observations are available. Additional thresholds apply before outer percentiles are displayed.
Is a 990Search report legal or tax advice?
No. 990Search provides informational research from public filings. A board should use qualified professional advice for its specific legal, tax, accounting, or compensation decisions.