Closing the Pay Gap: Compensation Among Executive Leaders of Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations

• In Event: 1184 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 16. Non-Profit

Abstract

The long-persisting under-representation of women among executive leaders in the business sector has been well documented, but less is known about the gender trends among the leaders of nonprofit advocacy organizations. This research seeks to address this gap in research and addresses two major questions: 1. To what extent have women occupied the top leadership positions of nonprofit advocacy organizations? 2. Is there a significant difference in compensation between female and male leaders of nonprofit advocacy organizations? Data for the analysis consists of annual data from IRS tax returns for 113 nonprofit advocacy organizations from 1999-2013; the sample is drawn from a subset of a larger study on advocacy organizations. The results find that women overall occupy just under 40% of executive leadership positions within nonprofit advocacy organizations, although the trend declines slightly over the time observed. The compensation analysis has promising implications for gender equality in leadership, however, showing no significant difference in the compensation for women and men nonprofit advocacy leaders, while organizational characteristics such as age or size were more likely to account for variation in compensation. This research has implications for understanding leadership trends in nonprofit advocacy organizations and yields valuable insights for the broader literature on gender and leadership, particularly regarding executive compensation.

Author

• Erica J. Dollhopf, Hartford Seminary