Where Your Donation Goes

Add up every functional-expense line the sector disclosed and cut one dollar the way the return cuts it. About 86¢ buys the mission. The other 14¢ 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 86¢, management & general 11¢, fundraising 3¢. The split is Part IX, line 25, columns B through D - the same three columns every chart below reads. ◐ Curated

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. An arts nonprofit and a congregation are running the same disclosure, and an eight-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 $62k (Religion-Related) to $186k (Health Care) - Part VIII takes that up properly. ◐ Curated

"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: arts and cultural groups carry the heaviest back office, while environmental and animal causes put the most into chasing the next gift - though sector-wide, management still outweighs fundraising.

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. ◐ Curated

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. A ten-point gap separates the District from Iowa.

Median overhead ratio across each state's full Form 990 filers, five gold steps. Highest: District of Columbia (18%). Lowest: Iowa (8%). The ranked table below carries every figure, so the shading is never the only way to read a state. ◐ Curated

All 51 states and DC, ranked by median overhead

#	State	Median overhead	Full-990 filers
1	District of Columbia DC	18%	4,673
2	Hawaii HI	15%	1,674
3	Massachusetts MA	15%	10,052
4	Colorado CO	14%	7,391
5	Illinois IL	14%	11,886
6	Maine ME	14%	2,325
7	Montana MT	14%	1,999
8	New Hampshire NH	14%	1,926
9	New Mexico NM	14%	1,965
10	New York NY	14%	24,778
11	Wisconsin WI	14%	6,250
12	Arizona AZ	13%	4,839
13	Delaware DE	13%	1,291
14	Louisiana LA	13%	3,565
15	Maryland MD	13%	6,792
16	Oregon OR	13%	5,210
17	South Carolina SC	13%	4,033
18	Tennessee TN	13%	6,221
19	Vermont VT	13%	1,601
20	Virginia VA	13%	9,278
21	Wyoming WY	13%	980
22	Alaska AK	12%	1,336
23	California CA	12%	35,843
24	Connecticut CT	12%	4,670
25	Georgia GA	12%	7,474
26	Kansas KS	12%	3,130
27	Michigan MI	12%	9,326
28	Minnesota MN	12%	8,241
29	Missouri MO	12%	6,506
30	Nevada NV	12%	1,725
31	New Jersey NJ	12%	8,615
32	North Carolina NC	12%	9,037
33	Pennsylvania PA	12%	16,596
34	Rhode Island RI	12%	1,563
35	Washington WA	12%	7,649
36	Arkansas AR	11%	2,521
37	Florida FL	11%	14,833
38	Indiana IN	11%	7,164
39	Kentucky KY	11%	3,805
40	Mississippi MS	11%	2,241
41	Oklahoma OK	11%	3,358
42	South Dakota SD	11%	1,311
43	Texas TX	11%	20,043
44	Alabama AL	10%	4,116
45	Idaho ID	10%	1,639
46	Nebraska NE	10%	2,501
47	Ohio OH	10%	12,738
48	West Virginia WV	10%	2,075
49	North Dakota ND	9%	1,288
50	Utah UT	9%	2,191
51	Iowa IA	8%	4,461

A leaderboard shows the extremes; it cannot tell you whether one number is unusual. Here is the whole field. Most organizations report overhead under 15 percent - a striking 44 in every hundred come in under 10 - so the population median sits at just 12%, while about one filer in six still runs past 30. Place any single charity against this shape before you judge it: it is bottom-heavy with a long right tail, not a bell.

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. ◐ Curated

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. ◐ Curated

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. ◐ Curated

Part VII of the return names the best-paid person in the building and what they made. The median health-care top officer out-earns the 75th percentile of nearly every other category; a typical religious organization pays its top officer about a third of what a health 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. ◐ Curated

The quartiles, category by category

Category	p25	Median	p75
Health Care	$92k	$186k	$406k
Disease & Medical Research	$71k	$142k	$256k
Education	$62k	$108k	$180k
Public & Societal Benefit	$56k	$107k	$182k
Philanthropy & Grantmaking	$51k	$100k	$173k
Environment & Animals	$66k	$96k	$145k
International & Foreign Affairs	$52k	$94k	$166k
Human Services	$60k	$92k	$143k
Arts, Culture & Humanities	$47k	$76k	$125k
Religion-Related	$33k	$62k	$98k

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 223k small filers down to 530 billion-dollar ones. ◐ Curated

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. These are the twelve largest filers by revenue that report a paid top officer, read straight from the 2024 IRS e-file release - real organizations, real columns. ◐ Curated

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