Endowment and Foundation
Investment Staff Compensation Survey

Detailed Insights on Compensation and Incentive Plan Design Practices

2026 Survey Participation is Closed

Our proprietary survey is a key source of benchmarking compensation levels and practices for staff managing investments in nonprofit organizations. Participants span college/university endowments, private foundations, health care and other nonprofit organizations. Our report provides salary, incentive opportunity and total cash compensation levels for 12 common positions, and provides detailed incentive plan design benchmarks for eligibility, performance measures and weightings, measurement periods, performance standards, and payout form/timing.

Survey Highlights

Base salary and total cash compensation data for senior and other investment staff
Detailed incentive plan design information, including performance measures and weighting, opportunity levels, payout and new hires
Other data including experience and organizational financial􀀀performance
National data reported by organization type and by asset category
Key endowment and foundation investment staff positions, including chief investment officer, managing director, director, manager, two levels of analyst staff and three levels of investment operations staff
Data on over 540 investment professionals from more than 60 organizations

Participation
Information

Participation in our surveys is made easy through our online data collection tool.

purchase

Please note: C3 Nonprofit Consulting Group is a division of SullivanCotter.

Pricing

2026 Survey Participants:
$1,700
2026 Early Submission Discount:
$300 off participant price
Nonparticipants:
$6,800

Key Dates

Participation opens:
January 6, 2026
Deadline for participation:
February 20, 2026
Benchmarks publication:
May 2026
Current status:
Closed for participation

Questions?

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact our Survey Team by phone at 888.739.7039 or by email at
surveys@sullivancotter.com

Interested in learning more? We would love to hear from you!

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Stay updated with our recent articles and insights.

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