{"id":111188,"date":"2026-02-11T16:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/111188\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:05:08","slug":"who-leads-philadelphias-nonprofits-a-closer-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/111188\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Leads Philadelphia\u2019s Nonprofits? A Closer Look"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nonprofit sector makes up a significant portion of Philadelphia\u2019s economy, employing about 30%<\/a> of the city\u2019s nongovernmental workers and generating $48.5 billion in annual revenue<\/a>\u2014more than a third of the city\u2019s gross domestic product, according to research by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Nonprofit groups encompass a variety of fields and come in a wide range of sizes, from large hospital systems and universities to child welfare organizations and small community arts centers. In this third article in a series examining Philadelphia nonprofit organizations\u2019 employment trends and revenue sources, Pew is taking a closer look at the leadership landscape in the city\u2019s nonprofit sector.<\/p>\n


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Research from the Nonprofit Finance Fund<\/a> found that when the demographics of nonprofit leaders mirror those of their local populations, it can enhance the delivery of services to their communities. Leaders in these circumstances \u201care often able to take the temperature and understand how policy should be crafted so that it is supportive of people on the ground,\u201d said Kelly Woodland, executive director of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey\u2019s Center for Leadership Equity. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t solve problems in echo chambers,\u201d he added. \u201cYou need folks who reflect the communities being served.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonprofits organizations\u2019 importance to the local economy notwithstanding, the data needed to fully understand Philadelphia\u2019s nonprofit sector is incomplete at best. Partial data on employment, revenue, and employee demographics in the sector is available from some organizations through self-reporting, but such information is not shared by all organizations. Nevertheless, the existing data on the racial, ethnic, and gender makeup of the individuals who head nonprofits does shed light on this vital sector. <\/p>\n

This analysis aims to provide factual information on the demographics of nonprofit leaders in the city, using data from Candid<\/a>, an organization that collects and disseminates information about nonprofits. Pew used Candid’s data about Philadelphia and six peer U.S. cities, in addition to using Candid\u2019s nonprofit demographic data<\/a>. The comparison cities analyzed\u2014Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh\u2014were selected because they are frequently cited in Pew\u2019s Philadelphia research, including in its annual \u201cState of the City<\/a>\u201d report. <\/p>\n


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Nonprofit leaders are defined in the existing data as professionals who head the organizations\u2014typically executive directors, CEOs, or presidents\u2014but not those who serve in advisory roles, such as board members. <\/p>\n

Approximately 10% of nonprofit organizations in each of these cities have provided some level of demographic data to Candid since 2019. In Philadelphia, that included slightly fewer than 700, or 11.6%, of the nearly 5,800 nonprofits in the data set for the city. A detailed methodology for this data and analysis is available here.<\/p>\n

Nearly one-third of Philadelphia\u2019s nonprofit leaders were Black <\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, 31% of reported nonprofit leaders were Black or African American; 52% were White; 15% were another racial or ethnic group, or multiracial or multiethnic; and for 3%, race and ethnicity were unknown, or the respondents declined to provide that information. (The percentage totals may exceed 100% because of rounding.) Overall, 38% of Philadelphia residents are Black or African American, and 33% are White. Among the comparison cities, Philadelphia had the third-largest share of Black or African American nonprofit leaders, behind Detroit (49%) and Baltimore (37%). Boston and Chicago had the highest percentage of nonprofit leadership by members of races and ethnicities other than Black or White, at about 1 in 5 leaders. (See Figure 1.)<\/p>\n

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Women in leadership outnumber men<\/p>\n

In all of the cities analyzed, roughly 60% of nonprofit leaders were women. Baltimore had the lowest share of female leaders at nonprofits, at 59%, and Cleveland was highest, at 63%. In Philadelphia, the share was 61%. (See Figure 2.) By comparison, previous Pew research<\/a> on private business ownership found that the rate of female ownership among all businesses citywide was 42%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Stark differences in pay for nonprofit leaders, depending on the city
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When considering leadership broadly (i.e., not solely the executive director or equivalent), nonprofits filing IRS form 990 must report total compensation for top staff, including \u201ccurrent officers, directors, trustees, and key employees.\u201d In this section of Pew\u2019s analysis, the reporting is referred to as \u201cleadership compensation,\u201d although the expense reported on this line may be associated with multiple high-level employees of an organization, rather than only the compensation of an executive director or equivalent role.<\/p>\n

The median compensation for nonprofit leaders, which accounts for salary and benefits, was around $100,000, although there was considerable variation among cities, with Boston having the highest median compensation, at $176,807, and Cleveland having the lowest, at $75,000. <\/p>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s median leadership compensation was $104,170, behind Boston and Baltimore. (See Figure 3.) Among the cities examined, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston had the highest shares of nonprofit employment<\/a> citywide. Differing cost of living, competition for talent, and other factors may affect the salaries offered in each locality.<\/p>\n

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Ongoing research could yield more insights <\/p>\n

Of the seven cities examined in this analysis, Philadelphia is in the upper half for Black or African American representation in leadership at nonprofit organizations and leadership compensation. And it is on par with other cities for female representation among leadership. <\/p>\n

Data about nonprofit employees, including demographic characteristics such as race and gender, remains limited, although more information has become available in recent years.<\/p>\n

Because organizations voluntarily report the data, it is not necessarily representative of the nonprofit sector as whole. However, it does provide a snapshot of the demographic realities at some organizations in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. And as research continues on nonprofit organizations and their roles in the communities they serve, demographic data for nonprofit leadership is likely to become more robust.<\/p>\n

Alix Sullivan works on The Pew Charitable Trusts\u2019 Philadelphia research and policy initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The nonprofit sector makes up a significant portion of Philadelphia\u2019s economy, employing about 30% of the city\u2019s nongovernmental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23122,1165,53085,3969,8343,16876,3975,69,71,70,23121,16874,53086,8340,8342],"class_list":["post-111188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-alix-sullivan","tag-article","tag-budget-threads","tag-building-civic-infrastructure","tag-fiscal-and-economic-policy","tag-katie-martin","tag-pew-charitable-trusts","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-research-and-policy","tag-racial-disparities","tag-state-data","tag-strengthen-state-government","tag-us-state-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}