CEOs Got Hefty Raises at Some Big Nonprofits

The chief executives of the country’s largest nonprofit organizations won median pay raises of 4.3% last year, but some of them have enjoyed substantially larger increases over time, according to a new survey.

Compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and to be released today, the survey found that 45 top executives of charities, foundations, universities and other nonprofits earned $500,000 or more.

Overall, the median increase for nonprofit CEOs rose 4.3% in 2002, nearly twice the rate of inflation. But over the last five years, cumulative raises granted to some of those surveyed were much larger.

The top gainers include William H. Gray III, the president of the United Negro College Fund, whose pay rose 132% over five years from $175,000 in 1997 to $404,427 in 2002.

Thomas M. Lofton, chairman of the Lilly Endowment, was paid $822,000 last year, an 83% rise since 1997.

Pay for Susan V. Berresford, the president of the Ford Foundation, has risen 48% to $651,713.

Those figures are all separate from the cost of benefits paid to the executives.

At 38 of the 329 nonprofits surveyed by the Chronicle, the highest-paid employee besides the CEO also made at least $500,000 and in some cases made more than their boss, the survey found.

In one striking example, Cornell University’s highest salaried employee, medical professor Zev Rosenwaks, was paid $2.12 million in 2002. Meanwhile, Cornell’s president, Hunter S. Rawlings III, made $205,697, according to the survey.