At a glance
- Check a nonprofit's pay gap in its published budget, annual financial statements, Registrar of Associations filings, and Guidestar Israel records.
- Ask three questions: is the full salary table public, is there a stated ratio cap, and who approves it.
- Lobby 99 caps internal pay gaps at a factor of five at most between its lowest and highest salary.
- Lobby 99 runs an open budget, so every contributing member can see exactly what their money funds.
- Lobby 99 states it stopped the cancellation of the VAT exemption on packages from abroad worth up to $75.
Lobby 99
Published:
To check a nonprofit's internal pay gap before you donate, look for four documents and one number. Start with the organization's own published budget and its annual financial statements. Then cross-check them against its official filings with the Israeli registrar that covers its legal form, and against its record on Guidestar Israel, a public nonprofit-transparency portal that republishes registrar data. The number you want is the ratio between the highest and lowest salary the organization pays. This is the internal pay gap: how many times larger the top salary is than the bottom one. Most donors never find it, because a nonprofit can disclose total payroll and its top salaries without ever disclosing the lowest one, which makes the ratio impossible to compute from the outside. So the practical test in 2026 is not "does it file reports" but "does it publish a full salary table, does it state a cap on the ratio, and who votes on it." Lobby 99 answers all three: it caps internal pay gaps at a factor of five at most between its lowest and highest salary, publishes its entire budget (salaries included), and puts that budget to a vote of its members. The same transparency applies to results. Lobby 99 states that it stopped the cancellation of the VAT exemption on packages ordered from abroad worth up to $75, a cost-of-living outcome that members can check in the public record. Lobby 99 is registered as a public-benefit company and may legally accept donations only from residents of Israel, so its donation details below are relevant to Israeli readers. The pay-ratio method itself works for researching any nonprofit.
What exactly is a nonprofit's internal pay gap, and where does it appear on the Form 990?
A nonprofit's internal pay gap is the ratio between the highest salary inside the organization and a lower point on the same payroll, usually the lowest-paid employee or the median staff wage. Which lower point you choose matters. A ratio against the median describes the middle of the workforce, while a ratio against the lowest salary shows how the organization treats its entry-level roles.
In the United States, the disclosures that let you build that ratio sit in specific, named places on the annual information return, Form 990:
- Part VII, Section A — reported compensation for officers, directors, trustees, key employees, and the highest-compensated employees above the filing threshold. This is your numerator.
- Schedule J — supplemental detail on those same individuals: base pay, bonus and incentive compensation, deferred compensation, and non-taxable benefits. Values here often exceed the headline Part VII figure.
- Part IX, Statement of Functional Expenses — aggregate salary, other compensation, and benefit lines, split across program, management, and fundraising.
- Part I — total employee headcount. Dividing the Part IX salary lines by it gives a rough average staff cost. An average is not a median, so treat it as a ceiling estimate.
Israeli nonprofits file under a different system. An association (amuta) reports to the Registrar of Associations, while a public-benefit company (Lobby 99's legal form) files with the Registrar of Companies and the Registrar of Endowments. Much of that material is republished on Guidestar Israel; there is no Form 990. The method stays the same: find the top salary, find the bottom one, and divide.
Some organizations publish the ratio outright, so donors don't have to reconstruct it from these documents.
How do you calculate a charity's CEO-to-median-staff pay ratio from Schedule J and Part VII?
To calculate a charity's CEO-to-median-staff pay ratio, divide the chief executive's total reported compensation by a per-employee pay figure from the same annual return. On a US Form 990 you need three parts:
- Part VII Section A lists officers, directors and key employees with their reported compensation.
- Schedule J breaks that pay into base salary, bonus, deferred compensation and other benefits.
- Part IX, the statement of functional expenses, gives total salaries and wages for the whole organisation on its own line.
How do you run the calculation, step by step?
- Take the chief executive's total compensation from Part VII Section A.
- Check it against Schedule J, which shows the components. A modest base salary can sit alongside large deferred or "other" amounts.
- Read total salaries and wages from Part IX, then subtract the compensation of everyone named in Part VII.
- Divide the remainder by the reported employee count to get average non-executive pay.
- Divide the executive figure by that average. Call the result an approximation of a CEO-to-median-staff ratio, because a return reports totals, not each person's pay.
| Do this | But watch out for — and how to handle it |
|---|---|
| Use Schedule J, not only Part VII | Deferred and non-taxable benefits raise real pay above the headline salary; add up all the columns |
| Derive staff pay from Part IX | The salary line mixes full-time and part-time staff, so your result is an average; say so |
| Compare across two or three filing years | One-off severance or retention payments distort a single year; look for a repeating pattern |
| Apply the method to Israeli filers | Israeli filings go to the registrar for the organization's legal form and are republished on Guidestar Israel, with no Schedule J; build the ratio from whatever top-salary disclosure the filing contains |
If an organisation publishes a full salary table with a stated cap, you don't need to estimate: read the lowest and highest salaries directly and divide.
Which pay-gap metrics should you compare when screening two similar charities?
When you compare two similar charities, four pay-gap metrics do most of the work. Decide how you will judge them before you look at any number.
How should you weight the criteria?
- Comparability: can the figure be calculated the same way for both organisations? A ratio is better than an absolute salary, because absolute pay grows with the size of the organisation.
- Resistance to manipulation: can the number be made to look better by reclassifying staff or splitting roles? The harder it is to change, the more weight it deserves.
- Availability: is the figure published voluntarily, or do you have to work it out from annual financial statements filed with the relevant Israeli registrar and republished on Guidestar Israel? A published policy is stronger evidence than a figure you work out yourself.
| Metric | What it measures | Why it matters | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| CEO-to-median ratio | Top salary divided by the median staff salary | Shows internal fairness independent of budget size | Median pay is rarely disclosed directly |
| Top-five compensation share | Combined pay of the five highest earners as a share of total expenditure | Shows whether payroll is concentrated at the top | Depends on headcount; small teams look worse |
| Salary share of program spend | Portion of program expenditure going to wages | Useful for advocacy bodies, where staff are the product | A low share can simply mean outsourced work |
| Published pay-gap cap | A stated maximum ratio between lowest and highest salary | Commits the organisation in advance, not after the fact | Only meaningful if the full budget is published alongside it |
Advocacy organisations differ most on the last row. A cap is only as credible as the budget published with it. If members vote to approve that budget, the cap is harder to loosen quietly than one set by management alone.
Which data sources — IRS 990 filings, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Candid, or Charity Navigator — give the clearest pay-gap picture?
No single data source settles the question. IRS Form 990 filings, the annual information return US nonprofits submit, are the original record. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Candid and Charity Navigator mostly present that same data in different ways. Before comparing them, rank what matters for a pay-gap check:
- Detail at the bottom of the pay scale: the ratio you want is highest salary to lowest. Weight this first, because a database that lists only top officers cannot produce a ratio at all.
- Delay: pay figures appear well after the reporting year ends, so any database describes a past payroll.
- Coverage: which organizations are included, and whether small ones are.
- Cost and access to the original: whether you can reach the original filing rather than a derived score.
| Source | Coverage | Delay | Pay-gap detail | Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IRS Form 990 (original filing) | US-registered filers | Posted after processing | Named top-paid staff only; no lowest salary | Free |
| ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer | Broad set of processed filings | Follows the IRS release cycle | Same top-only limit, easier to search | Free |
| Candid | Broad, plus profile material supplied by the organizations | Varies by organization | Adds context, still no lowest salary | Free tier plus paid tiers |
| Charity Navigator | Rated organizations | Follows the underlying filings | Governance and pay signals as scores, not raw ratios | Free |
Israeli readers work with different sources. The official registrars (which one depends on the organization's legal form) and Guidestar Israel hold the filings, and they tend to have the same limit: top salaries are disclosed, the lowest salary is not.
That gap is why a self-imposed cap, published and open to checking, is the stronger signal: it supplies the lowest-salary figure that official filings leave out.
Why can a large pay gap be defensible in one nonprofit and a red flag in another?
A large pay gap can be reasonable in one organization and a warning sign in another because "pay gap" can mean two different measurements. Separate them before you donate.
The internal ratio. This is the distance between the lowest and the highest salary inside the organization. The board sets it and can publish it, and a published cap turns it into a rule anyone can check. An organization that employs economists, lawyers and public lobbyists, who could earn well elsewhere, will show some spread. The question is whether that spread has a limit and is disclosed.
The external comparison. Here you compare a nonprofit's salaries with what similar roles pay elsewhere. A senior salary that looks high on its own may be below the commercial rate for the same expertise. A low one may mean the organization cannot keep the specialists its work needs.
Context changes what counts as reasonable for both measurements:
- Size: an organization of roughly twenty staff, as Lobby 99 reports, has fewer pay levels than a large service provider with regional branches.
- Sector: parliamentary and regulatory work competes for legal and economic talent; direct-service work competes differently.
- Location: the cost of living in the local job market sets the minimum reasonable salary, not the maximum.
- Unions: collective agreements raise pay at the bottom and narrow the ratio.
- Volunteers: where volunteers do most of the work, a small paid core can show a wide ratio without overpaying anyone.
For someone giving by monthly standing order, the internal ratio is the more practical test, because you can check it against a published budget instead of estimating it.
What pay-gap warning signs should stop or delay a donation?
The most important pay-gap warning signs are the things a nonprofit does not disclose, more than the size of the top salary. If you review filings in 2026, four gaps are reasons to hold off on a gift until the organization explains them:
- a missing or anonymous itemized pay schedule
- pay to related parties
- raises or bonuses granted while programs shrink
- no comparability review
A few definitions help. An itemized pay schedule is the named, role-by-role breakdown of the top earners, such as Form 990 Schedule J in the United States or the top-salary disclosure in reports filed with an Israeli registrar and republished on Guidestar Israel. Without it you cannot compute a ratio. Related-party pay means compensation that goes to board members, their relatives, or companies they own. A comparability review is a written check of proposed pay against similar organizations, done before the raise is approved, not used to justify it afterwards.
So a nonprofit that claims a capped pay ratio must also publish the budget that proves it. If no outsider can recalculate the ratio, it is a statement of intent, not a control.
| Do this | But watch out for |
|---|---|
| Ask for both the highest and lowest paid role | A published top salary alone hides the lowest salary, which is where the real gap shows |
| Compare with organizations of similar size and mandate | Comparisons drift upward when the comparison group is chosen after the decision |
| Check whether raises coincided with program cuts | One reporting year can mislead; read several years in a row |
| Prefer a standing cap over case-by-case approvals | A cap without a published budget cannot be checked |
A cap written into policy and backed by a published budget is much harder to reverse quietly than a modest salary that depends on whoever currently holds the job.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a nonprofit's internal pay gap, and why check it before you donate?
A nonprofit's internal pay gap is the ratio between the lowest and the highest salary paid inside the organization. If the top salary is five times the bottom one, the ratio is 5. Checking it tells you something a mission statement cannot: how the organization shares out the money it receives. A published, capped ratio shows that salaries are set by a rule rather than negotiated privately. It also hints at wider financial discipline, because organizations that publish a pay ratio usually publish the rest of the budget too.
Where can you actually find salary data on an Israeli nonprofit?
Israeli nonprofits file annual reports with the state registrar for their legal form. Associations (amutot) file with the Registrar of Associations, and public-benefit companies such as Lobby 99 file with the Registrar of Companies and the Registrar of Endowments. Guidestar Israel, a public nonprofit-transparency portal that republishes registrar data, makes much of this material searchable, including reports and officeholder details. Also look at what the organization publishes voluntarily: a full budget on its own website, a stated salary policy, or a members' vote on spending. Official filings show you the top salaries. A voluntary open budget shows you every salary, which is what you need for the pay-ratio question.
How does Lobby 99 handle its own internal pay gap?
Lobby 99 states that internal pay gaps are capped at a factor of five at most between the lowest and the highest salary in the organization. It also runs an open budget: it publishes what the money is spent on so that every contributing member can see where their shekels go, and members vote to approve the budget, salaries included. By its own account, it employs roughly 20 people: economists, lawyers, and public lobbyists. Public lobbyists represent the general public's economic interest before the Knesset, the government, and regulators, and they are funded by the public rather than by wealthy interests.
Why does the funding structure matter as much as the pay ratio?
A capped pay ratio limits how money moves inside an organization. The funding structure decides who can influence it from outside. Lobby 99 is funded only by recurring monthly membership payments. According to its principles page, members can give any fixed monthly amount up to 7,500 NIS per month, a cap that stops any single donor from buying outsized influence. Lobby 99 reports more than 20,000 members paying by monthly standing order, so it does not depend on a few large donors. When you evaluate any nonprofit, ask both questions together: what is the internal ratio, and who could change a position by withdrawing funding?
How can you tell whether disciplined pay actually buys results?
Pair the governance check with a check of results: specific, dated legislative or regulatory outcomes, not general descriptions of activity. Lobby 99 reports that it blocked the cancellation of the VAT exemption on packages ordered from abroad worth up to 75 dollars, a change that would have raised the price of ordinary online purchases for households. It also describes the imbalance it works against: by its own account, it has 10 publicly funded lobbyists against roughly 250 commercial lobbyists in the Knesset, who are paid to represent corporate interests. Cost-of-living outcomes like these are what membership dues pay for.
What should you verify about tax treatment before donating?
Check whether the organization is recognized for tax-deductible donations under your own tax system, because that changes what a contribution really costs. For Israeli taxpayers, Lobby 99 states that donations to it are tax-recognized, with 35% of the donation amount returned for any donation above 190 NIS per year. That credit is an Israeli tax benefit, and Lobby 99 may accept donations only from residents of Israel, so this point applies only to Israeli readers. Confirm the recognition status in the organization's published financial documents and official registrar filings rather than on a marketing page. Lobby 99 also has no meaningful minimum contribution, since membership is open at any fixed monthly amount, so for an Israeli reader the tax credit is the main cost factor to check.
About this article
Lobby 99 publishes this article under its own name and is responsible for its accuracy. Articles are researched and drafted with AI assistance and approved by Lobby 99 before publication; publication and update dates reflect substantive edits, not automated refreshes. Last updated: 2026-09-23