What 217 Charities' Tax Filings Reveal: Growth, Deficits and Executive Pay (2026)

Ratings tell you whether a charity is well run, but they compress at the top: 203 of the 216 charities in our directory that Charity Navigator rates hold its highest 4-star rating. To see differences you need the numbers underneath. So we pulled up to five years of IRS Form 990 data for 217 well-known US charities — every one in our directory that files a Form 990 — and looked at what they raise, what they spend, what they keep in reserve and what they pay their leadership.

The figures come from each charity's own Form 990 filings, as extracted by ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, and were collected in October 2026. Most charities' latest filing covers 2023 (192 of 217); 21 have filed for 2024. The methods section at the end explains the definitions and limits.

How big are they?

Very big, mostly. The median charity here reported $63.8M in revenue in its latest year, and together they reported $46.2B. That reflects how the directory was built — around the charities people actually search for — so these are mostly established national and international organizations, not small local groups. Revenue also counts donated goods at their value, which is why food banks and medical-aid charities that move donated food and medicine top the list.

Who grew fastest — and who shrank

Comparing each charity's latest revenue with its revenue about four years earlier (usually 2019 to 2023), the median charity grew 33%. Consumer prices rose about 19% over the same stretch, so the typical charity grew in real terms too. The spread is wide, though. To keep tiny starting figures from distorting the picture, the tables below only include charities that started with at least $5M in revenue.

A falling revenue line isn't automatically bad news. Revenue on a Form 990 includes one-off events — a large bequest, a disaster appeal, investment gains — and many charities had unusually high income during the pandemic and in disaster years. A charity can also shrink by design, for example by handing programs to local partners. Use a decline as a prompt to read the charity's annual report, not as a verdict.

How many spend more than they raise?

About half: 111 of 217 charities reported expenses above revenue in their latest year, and 28 did so in at least three of their last five filed years. That sounds alarming, but deficits are often planned. Charities spend down money raised in earlier years (pandemic and disaster appeals especially), pay out multi-year grants, or book investment losses. What matters is whether the charity has reserves to cover the gap and whether the pattern keeps going. Every charity page in our directory shows five years of revenue, expenses and net assets so you can check the trend yourself.

How much goes to leadership pay?

Form 990 reports the total paid to a charity's current officers, directors, trustees and key employees. Across the 210 charities with that figure, the median was 2.1% of total spending. Size matters a lot: leadership pay is a much bigger share of a small charity's budget than a large one's, simply because a large charity spreads a handful of senior salaries across a far bigger operation.

So compare pay against charities of similar size, not across the board — and remember that a capable, fairly paid leadership team is usually a good sign, not a bad one.

How much do they keep in reserve?

Net assets (what a charity owns minus what it owes) divided by a year's spending gives a rough sense of its cushion. The median charity here had net assets equal to 1.1 years of spending. Very low reserves can leave a charity fragile in a bad year; very high reserves can mean money sitting idle — or an endowment, building or land that can't easily be spent. It varies by cause:

How to use this

Numbers like these are a starting point. A good rating, steady or growing revenue, a reserve that covers at least several months of spending and leadership pay in line with similar-sized charities together make a reassuring picture. Each charity's page shows its rating, EIN and five years of Form 990 figures with links to the filings, and each cause page ranks its charities side by side:

• Browse all charities by cause
• Giving Tuesday 2026: a 15-minute charity check
• How to evaluate a charity yourself

Methods and limits

We used the five most recent Form 990 filings with extracted data for each charity in our directory that files with the IRS (217 charities), as published by ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer in October 2026. Revenue is total revenue, including contributions, program income and investment income. Expenses are total functional expenses. Net assets are total assets minus total liabilities at year end. Leadership pay is the Form 990 line for compensation of current officers, directors, trustees and key employees, as a share of total expenses. Fiscal years differ between charities, and some charities report through related organizations, so figures for any one charity can differ from its audited statements. Ratings are Charity Navigator's, checked at the same time. Charities that don't file a Form 990 are not included. For international organizations we use the filing of their US affiliate (for example, Oxfam America for Oxfam), and name that affiliate in the tables.