2025 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report: Key Findings

The 2025 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits (GSB) Key Findings is a visual highlight of the trends and changes that are shaping the philanthropic sector.

Also available as a free PDF, the 2025 GSB Key Findings is just a small fraction of the expansive dataset available in the 2025 GSB Report, which reflects information from 985 grantmakers for 11,366 full-time staff members. When it is released, Council members will be able to download the full 2025 GSB Report for free, and nonmembers can purchase the full report for $599.

Download the Key Findings PDF

Download the 2025 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report on Oct. 6

Salary increase rates tick upward once again

Median Salary Increases

Turnover rates climb after a drop in 2024

After turnover jumped in 2023 amid the Great Resignation, mean rates and total organizations reporting departures both dropped in 2024. However, in 2025, the mean turnover rate and the percentage of grantmakers reporting staff departures rose once again.

Mean Turnover Rate

2025 2024 2023 2022

Reported Staff Departures

57%

of responsive grantmakers reported staff departures for 2025.

53% in 2024
57% in 2023
52% in 2022

Racial diversity continues to rise for staff, executives

People of color account for:

18.6%

of foundation CEOs were people of color, grew from:

17.1% in 2024
14.9% in 2023
13.6% in 2022

34.7%

of full-time grantmaking staff in 2025.

33.5% in 2024
32.7% in 2023
30.6% in 2022

Women account for:

63.8%

of foundation CEOs identified as female, up slightly from

62.6% in 2024
61.0% in 2023
61.8% in 2022

76.0%

of full-time grantmaking staff in 2025.

75.8% in 2024
76.2% in 2023
76.7% in 2022

The gender pay gap among CEOs has narrowed

2025

The median salary for female CEOs was:

The median salary for male CEOs was:

*or about 88.1% of the median salary reported for male CEOs.

2024

The median salary for female CEOs was:

The median salary for male CEOs was:

*or about 83.5% of the median salary reported for male CEOs.

The trends of decreasing real-dollar salaries for community foundation staff and private foundation CEOs persists

Despite several years of higher reported salary increases, inflation-adjusted salaries for non-CEO staff at community foundations are lower than they were in 2021.

All Community Foundation Staff Salary Growth

13.7% nominal growth 2021 - 2025 | 3.4% nominal average annual change | -6.3% real growth 2021 - 2025 | -1.6% real average annual change

Community Foundation CEO Salary Growth

26.1% nominal growth 2021 - 2025 | 6.5% nominal average annual change | 3.9% real growth 2021 - 2025 | 1.0% real average annual change

For private foundations, the opposite is true: In real dollars, reported median salaries are higher than they were in 2021 for all roles except CEOs and Program Officers.