Nonprofit Chief Financial Officer Salary Benchmarks
See how Chief Financial Officer pay compares across U.S. nonprofits — by budget size, geography, and sector. Built from IRS Form 990 filings across 186,890 nonprofits.
How much does a nonprofit Chief Financial Officer make?
Across 186,890 U.S. nonprofits' IRS Form 990 filings, median Chief Financial Officer pay ranges from $16,266 at organizations with budgets of Under $250K to $270,369 at organizations with budgets of $50M+. At a mid-size nonprofit ($1M – $2.5M budget), the median is $61,826. Budget size is the single strongest driver of nonprofit pay — use the calculator below to benchmark against organizations your size, in your state and cause area.
Every number here summarizes what nonprofits reported on their public IRS Form 990 filings. Filings can contain errors and we don't certify any figure — for a decision that matters, check the organization's actual 990. How we build these benchmarks →
What you get
Free, interactive nonprofit pay benchmarks from public IRS filings.
Built from the public IRS Form 990 Part VII filings as the IRS publishes them.
Chief Financial Officer salary questions, answered
How much does a nonprofit Chief Financial Officer make?+
For nonprofits with $1M – $2.5M budgets, the median Chief Financial Officer total compensation is $61,826, based on IRS Form 990 filings. Pay rises with budget size: small organizations typically pay well below this figure and large institutions well above it.
What determines Chief Financial Officer pay at a nonprofit?+
Budget size explains most of the variation — a Chief Financial Officer at a $50M organization typically earns several times the pay at a $500K organization. Geography (state and metro cost-of-labor) and sector (health and higher-ed pay more than human services and arts) account for most of the rest. Boards typically document comparability data — including 990-based benchmarks like these — when setting executive pay under the IRS's rebuttable-presumption procedure; whether any data set fits your organization is your board's call.
Where does this Chief Financial Officer salary data come from?+
Every figure comes from public IRS Form 990 filings — the annual returns nonprofits file with compensation for officers, directors, and key employees. Kindora aggregates 342,927 pay records across 186,890 organizations and suppresses any cell with fewer than 5 filings.
How we built these benchmarks
- Source: IRS Form 990 Part VII filings (the public disclosure of nonprofit officer pay).
- Positions classified by an AI model into 14 standard nonprofit leadership roles.
- Peer cells require at least 5 filings; smaller samples are suppressed.
- Latest data: September 2026.
Ready to compare more?
The free public calculator covers all 50 states and 8 cause areas — and lets you layer them — in English or Spanish, no login required. A free account adds saved benchmarks and the side-by-side comparison studio. Paid plans add metro-area and sub-sector drill-downs, board-ready PDF exports, and the API/MCP integration.