The Role of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Other Factors in Influencing Top Executive Compensation in American Environmental Nonprofits

The article reports the findings of a pathbreaking national study that examines executive compensation in American environmental nonprofits. This article seeks to accomplish two goals: (1) examine the gender disparities in the pay of chief executive officers (CEOs), executive directors, and presidents in environmental organizations; and (2) analyze the ethnic/racial differences in the wages of the top executive in said nonprofits. The study uses financial information from Internal Revenue Service Form 990 to examine top executive salaries in 2,703 organizations. The author collected data from tax forms filed between 2018 and 2020. The article examines how gender and race/ethnicity are associated with compensation. It also analyzes how region, organizational type, urbanization, organizational revenue, staff size, the board size, the receipt of bonuses and incentives, the size of the bonuses/incentives, and the size of the base wages are related to overall compensation. Men occupied 51.2% (1,383) and women 48.8% (1,320) of the top executive positions in the organizations studied. Whites dominate the CEO position, that is, 92% or 2,488 of the CEOs were White, and 8% (215) were people of color. The study found significant gender pay gaps. While the median compensation for men was $117,468, it was $88,568.50 for women. Hence, women CEOs earned 75.4% of what men were paid. There was also an ethnic/racial pay gap. The study found that White CEOs earned a median income of $102,801. The median wage for Asian CEOs was 97.6%, Black CEOs was 96%, Latinx CEOs was 80.8%, and Native American CEOs was 73.4% of what White CEOs earned. White men obtained the highest median compensation of all gender, and racial/ethnic groups studied. The total compensation also varied by region, organizational revenues, organizational type, level of urbanization, staff size, board size, receipt of bonuses and incentives, the size of bonuses/incentives, and size of base wages. The size of the organization’s revenue, whether a CEO received bonuses/incentives, region, the CEO’s race/ethnicity, the CEO’s gender, and size of the staff were significant factors in the multivariate regression model.