About DoubleNine Benchmark

Nonprofit compensation benchmarking built on public IRS data.

DoubleNine Benchmark helps nonprofit boards and executives answer a simple question: is our compensation reasonable? We process over one million IRS Form 990 filings to provide transparent, data-driven benchmarks — no expensive consultants required.

Data Source

All compensation data comes from electronically filed IRS Form 990 returns. Form 990 Part VII requires tax-exempt organizations to report compensation for their officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and highest-compensated employees.

Electronic filings are publicly available through the IRS and cover approximately 60–65% of all Form 990 filers. Organizations with gross receipts above $200,000 or total assets above $500,000 are required to file the full Form 990.

Coverage

The DoubleNine database currently includes over 1 million compensation records from more than 200,000 nonprofit organizations, covering tax years 2021 through 2024.

Title Standardization

IRS Form 990 contains free-text title fields, which means the same role can appear hundreds of different ways. Position titles are standardized into canonical categories using a multi-method classification system informed by academic research from the Nonprofit Open Data Collective.

Position Categories

CEO / Executive Director
CFO / Finance Director
COO / Operations Director
CDO / Development Director
Program Director
Marketing / Communications
HR / Administration
Legal / General Counsel
Other Executive
Other Staff

Peer Selection

When generating a compensation benchmark, DoubleNine identifies peer organizations based on three factors:

  • Budget size — Organizations with similar annual operating expenses
  • Sector — Organizations in the same or closely related NTEE category
  • Geography — Organizations in the same state or neighboring states

IRS Compliance Context

This tool supports the comparability review process described in IRS Form 990 Part VI, Line 15 and Treasury Regulation § 53.4958-6(a). The rebuttable presumption of reasonableness requires compensation decisions to be approved by an independent body using appropriate comparability data. DoubleNine Benchmark provides one source of such data but should be used alongside other compensation studies and professional guidance.

Limitations

  • Only includes electronically filed returns (~60–65% of filers). Organizations that file on paper are not represented.
  • Data reflects filed fiscal years, typically with a 1–2 year lag from the current date.
  • Title standardization is automated and may occasionally misclassify ambiguous titles.
  • Compensation figures include only amounts reported on Form 990 Part VII: base compensation, bonus, and other compensation from the organization and related organizations.
  • Does not include benefits, deferred compensation, or non-reportable perquisites.
  • Small organizations (under $200K gross receipts) may file 990-EZ, which is not included in this database.
  • Benchmarks are most reliable when a sufficient number of peer organizations are available. Results based on fewer than 10 comparisons should be interpreted with caution.

Acknowledgments

DoubleNine Benchmark builds on open-source research and data standards developed by the Nonprofit Open Data Collective (NODC), a community of researchers and practitioners working to make nonprofit data more accessible and useful.

Raw filing data is sourced from the GivingTuesday Data Commons, which maintains a public archive of IRS Form 990 electronic filings.