Where Your Donation Goes

Add up every functional-expense line the sector disclosed and cut one dollar the way the return cuts it. About 79¢ buys the mission. The other 21¢ runs the machine: keeping the lights on, and raising the next dollar. The rest of this page is an audit of that remainder.

Cents of each expense dollar, summed across all full Form 990 filers: program services 79¢, management & general 12¢, fundraising 9¢. The split is Part IX, line 25, columns B through D - the same three columns every chart below reads. ○ Illustrative

The same dollar, cut by cause. Every full Form 990 divides total spending into program services and overhead; here is the median split for each of the ten big NTEE categories, sorted so the ones that keep the most back sit on top. A medical-research charity and a congregation are running the same disclosure, and a fifteen-point spread separates them.

Median split of total functional expenses (Part IX, line 25) per NTEE major group, whole-percent medians. Median top-officer pay in these groups runs from $95k (Religion-Related) to $480k (Health Care) - Part VIII takes that up properly. ○ Illustrative

"Overhead" flattens two very different costs into one number. Management and general is the back office; fundraising is the price of the next donation. The return discloses them separately, and the mix is a fingerprint: grantmakers and health systems run admin-heavy, while medical research and environmental causes spend nearly as much chasing dollars as running the office.

Median share of total functional expenses, per NTEE category, sorted by the fundraising share. Both values sum to the category's overhead ratio in Part II. A fundraising-heavy mix is not misconduct - it is a business model - but the return lets you see which model you are funding. ○ Illustrative

The same disclosure, rolled up by where the organization files. Deeper gold is a higher median overhead ratio across that state's full Form 990 filers. The pattern is rent and payroll, not virtue: dense coastal states and the District run richer, while plains and mountain states keep more of each dollar on program. An eleven-point gap separates DC from the Dakotas.

Median overhead ratio across each state's full Form 990 filers, five gold steps. Highest: District of Columbia (27%). Lowest: South Dakota (16%). The ranked table below carries every figure, so the shading is never the only way to read a state. ○ Illustrative

All 51 states and DC, ranked by median overhead

#	State	Median overhead	Full-990 filers
1	District of Columbia DC	27%	14,700
2	Florida FL	25%	86,300
3	New York NY	25%	101,200
4	California CA	24%	168,000
5	Maryland MD	24%	33,100
6	Nevada NV	24%	9,800
7	Virginia VA	24%	40,500
8	Alaska AK	23%	4,200
9	Colorado CO	23%	28,900
10	Massachusetts MA	23%	44,600
11	New Jersey NJ	23%	45,300
12	Texas TX	23%	98,600
13	Arizona AZ	22%	25,800
14	Georgia GA	22%	41,200
15	Illinois IL	22%	58,400
16	Oregon OR	22%	23,400
17	Rhode Island RI	22%	6,800
18	Washington WA	22%	38,700
19	Connecticut CT	21%	22,400
20	Hawaii HI	21%	7,300
21	Louisiana LA	21%	17,300
22	Michigan MI	21%	44,800
23	North Carolina NC	21%	42,700
24	Pennsylvania PA	21%	63,900
25	South Carolina SC	21%	19,600
26	Tennessee TN	21%	26,300
27	Delaware DE	20%	6,100
28	Kentucky KY	20%	17,800
29	Mississippi MS	20%	10,400
30	Missouri MO	20%	31,600
31	New Hampshire NH	20%	8,700
32	New Mexico NM	20%	9,100
33	Ohio OH	20%	54,800
34	Oklahoma OK	20%	16,200
35	Arkansas AR	19%	13,100
36	Indiana IN	19%	29,700
37	Maine ME	19%	8,900
38	Minnesota MN	19%	34,200
39	Utah UT	19%	14,200
40	Vermont VT	19%	5,600
41	West Virginia WV	19%	7,400
42	Alabama AL	18%	21,600
43	Idaho ID	18%	7,600
44	Kansas KS	18%	14,900
45	Wisconsin WI	18%	31,200
46	Iowa IA	17%	18,200
47	Montana MT	17%	7,100
48	Nebraska NE	17%	10,600
49	Wyoming WY	17%	3,200
50	North Dakota ND	16%	4,300
51	South Dakota SD	16%	5,100

A leaderboard shows the extremes; it cannot tell you whether one number is unusual. Here is the whole field. Most organizations land between 10 and 20 percent, the population median sits at 20%, and only about one filer in eight runs past 30. Place any single charity against this shape before you judge it - and remember the shape has a long right tail, not a cliff.

Share of full Form 990 filers by overhead-ratio band. The gold column holds the population median; every column carries its own figure, so the shape reads without the color. ○ Illustrative

The overhead scolds have a weak case against the trend: the sector's median ratio has been easing down for a decade, from 21.4% to 20%. The one interruption is 2020, when pandemic-year revenue fell faster than fixed costs and the ratio jumped to 21.9% - a reminder that the denominator moves this number as much as the spending does.

Median overhead ratio across all full Form 990 filers, by the calendar year the fiscal period ended. One series, one axis; the 2020 spike is a revenue story, not a spending one. ○ Illustrative

The yearly ledger, 2015-2024

Year	Usable filings	Median overhead	Median top pay
2015	289,000	21.4%	$98k
2016	301,000	21.2%	$101k
2017	316,000	21%	$104k
2018	329,000	20.8%	$107k
2019	341,000	20.6%	$110k
2020	336,000	21.9%	$112k
2021	355,000	21.2%	$116k
2022	368,000	20.7%	$121k
2023	377,000	20.3%	$126k
2024	382,000	20%	$132k

Facet the decade by category and one panel breaks the pattern. Nine categories drift down; philanthropy and grantmaking creeps up. Every panel shares one scale, so height is comparable across the grid - medical research lives near the top of the range, religion near the bottom, and the 2020 bump shows up everywhere.

Median overhead ratio per category, 2015-2024, all panels on one 12-34% scale, ordered by where each category ends the decade. The printed figure is the 2024 value; the word under each panel states the direction, so the reading survives without color. ○ Illustrative

Part VII of the return names the best-paid person in the building and what they made. The middle half of health-care top officers earn more than the 75th percentile of almost every other category; a typical religious organization pays its top officer about a fifth of what a hospital system does. Note the scale: it is logarithmic, because the spread demands it.

Highest-paid-officer compensation per category: gold dot at the median, band from the 25th to the 75th percentile, log scale. The printed figure is the median. One person's pay, not the payroll - see the methodology. ○ Illustrative

The quartiles, category by category

Category	p25	Median	p75
Health Care	$210k	$480k	$940k
Disease & Medical Research	$150k	$320k	$700k
Philanthropy & Grantmaking	$120k	$260k	$540k
International & Foreign Affairs	$115k	$240k	$430k
Education	$96k	$210k	$460k
Public & Societal Benefit	$82k	$165k	$330k
Human Services	$74k	$145k	$265k
Environment & Animals	$68k	$135k	$250k
Arts, Culture & Humanities	$60k	$120k	$235k
Religion-Related	$48k	$95k	$180k

Sort the same filers by revenue and the two disclosed numbers pull apart. Median top-officer pay rises roughly thirtyfold from the smallest band to the largest, while the median overhead share drifts down - big organizations spread fixed costs over more program. So the charity with the leanest ratio and the charity with the best-paid executive are often the same charity. Neither number is a verdict on its own.

Median highest-paid-officer pay (blue) and median overhead share (gold) per revenue band; each pair of strips shares its own full-width scale, and every value is printed at the end of its strip. Band populations run from 612k small filers down to 2k billion-dollar ones. ○ Illustrative

Down to names. Twelve organizations, sorted by the share of spending that went to management and fundraising rather than programs, with the top officer's pay beside each - the whole disclosure on one line per charity. A high ratio is not automatically waste; startups, advocacy, and fundraising-heavy causes run higher. But the line is in the return, for every organization, every year, and now you know where to look.

Revenue is Part I line 12; program and overhead shares are Part IX; top pay is the highest single reported officer, Part VII. The organization names are stand-ins shaped to their categories - the columns, not the charities, are the point until the real ingest runs. ○ Illustrative

Tool Compare two charities side by side Overhead, program, revenue, and top-officer pay on one shared scale - the leaderboard, two at a time. ->