Tax-Exempt Organizations Recruiters

In fiscal 2025, which ran from 1 October 2024 through 30 September 2025, the IRS recognized 1,916,367 organizations as exempt under section 501(c) (IRS Data Book, 2025, Publication 55-B, April 2026, Table 2-6). Of those, 1,596,231 were section 501(c)(3) religious, charitable, and similar organizations. That line includes private foundations and organizations covered by a group exemption letter. It excludes churches and very small charities that never applied for recognition. Section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations numbered 69,617. Section 501(c)(6) business leagues numbered 57,916. Adding 239 section 501(d) religious and apostolic associations, 49,048 section 527 political organizations, and 103,087 nonexempt charitable and split-interest trusts, the master file covered 2,068,741 entities. A search that says “nonprofit lawyer” and means all of those subsections will interview the wrong half of the bar.

The IRS closed 145,202 applications for tax-exempt status in fiscal 2025. It approved 128,642, which is the 88.6 percent the Data Book reports, disapproved 149, and closed another 16,411 as withdrawn, incomplete, or otherwise unresolved (Table 2-4). Those three dispositions add to 145,202. Section 501(c)(3) accounted for 137,543 of the closures and 121,913 of the approvals. The table is not a count of first-time Forms 1023 alone. Footnote 1 includes public-charity and private-foundation status determinations, advance approval of scholarship procedures, and group determinations. A requisition for “someone who has gotten an exemption letter” has to name which of those products the lawyer has signed.

Exempt organizations filed 1,798,413 returns in fiscal 2025, down 0.4 percent from 1,805,833 in fiscal 2024 (Table 1-2). Against that filing volume, Table 3-5 records 889 examinations of Forms 990, 990-EZ, and 990-N, 77 examinations of Form 990-T (the unrelated business income return), and 188 examinations of Form 4720 (the return used for excise taxes on exempt organizations and related persons). A separate line, Forms 990-PF, 1041-A, 1120-POL, and 5227 together, was 77 examinations. The wider Tax Exempt and Government Entities count, which also includes employee plans, government entities, and tax-exempt bonds, was 7,914 returns. The 2026 hiring pressure is the determination, the information return, and the excise computation. Corporate field-exam defense is a different instruction, on tax planning and controversy.

Sartori & Partners maps 1,480,000+ lawyers. A tax-exempt organizations search is drawn from the slice of that field whose matters are qualification, the annual information return, private-foundation excise taxes, unrelated business income, and the compensation and endowment excises. The parent tax practice covers planning and controversy together. The nonprofit practice covers governance, grants, and how these organizations actually run. This page is the Code.

Law-firm exempt-organization groups. The buyer is a practice head replacing a partner, adding a counsel who can sign a determination and a Form 990, or hiring an associate who has already lived inside a private-foundation or hospital exemption file. The test is the docket. A corporate tax partner who has attended one scholarship-approval call is not an exempt-organization lateral. Conflicts decide whether a conversation can start: the lawyer’s current charities, and the firm’s existing board and donor relationships. Partner searches of this kind run through partner recruiting.

Private colleges and universities. The buyer is a sitting general counsel, or a president and board hiring a first general counsel, because section 4968 applies to taxable years beginning after 31 December 2025. The brief is the student-adjusted endowment, related-organization assets, student-loan interest, federally subsidized royalties, and the section 6033(o) student-count report. Compensation for the lawyer is not the section 4960 threshold and not the chief executive’s Form 990 figure. It is discussed with the general counsel salary page. A first general counsel, where the institution has never had one, is first general counsel search.

Hospitals and health systems. The buyer is the general counsel of a system, or a deputy whose portfolio is exemption, section 501(r), and section 4960 compensation. The reporting line is the chief legal officer. Physician-enterprise deals and medical-staff bylaws stay with healthcare. Mixing them onto one requisition produces a shortlist that can do neither file well. Where a legal department already exists, the path is in-house counsel recruiting.

Private foundations. The buyer is a foundation president hiring a first counsel, or a law firm hiring the lawyer who runs sections 4940 through 4945. At a small foundation the grant policy and the excise computation are often the same person. At a large foundation they are two people, and the second may sit in finance. Writing one job description for both is how the search stalls. The in-house version of a first counsel seat is the same first general counsel path, scoped to the excise regime rather than to a commercial contract book.

Associations and social-welfare organizations. The buyer is the general counsel of a section 501(c)(6) or 501(c)(4), often in Washington, where the membership, the lobbying disclosures, and the Form 8976 notice sit in one legal department. Fiscal 2025 left 57,916 recognized business leagues and 69,617 recognized social-welfare organizations on the master file. The nonprofit and tax-exempt speciality is the governance and grants version of those same organizations. Use that page when the brief is the board and the grant. Use this page when the brief is the Code. Candidates comparing the two should read both before sending a CV through the confidential submission.

From October 2023 through September 2026, Sartori & Partners closed 14 tax-exempt-organization searches: 8 for law firms and 6 for organizations. Of those 8 firm searches, 5 were partner and 3 were associate or counsel. Of the 6 organization searches, 4 were general counsel or deputy general counsel and 2 were tax counsel. 12 of the 14 ended with an accepted offer. The median time to a shortlist was 21 days. The median time to an accepted offer was 13 weeks.

Across general counsel and chief legal officer searches, the shortlist is 24 days and the median to an accepted offer is 11 weeks, on 52 GC and CLO searches since 2017. That series is the firm-wide general counsel book. The 14 searches here are a practice cut for October 2023 through September 2026. The 8 law-firm files sit outside those 38. The 6 organization files can sit inside them. Adding 14 to 38 counts the same in-house file twice.

One of the 6 organization files, and one of the 4 general counsel or deputy files: a private research university in Boston hired its first general counsel in 12 weeks, with a shortlist on day 19. The brief was a lawyer who had prepared a Form 990 and advised a board on section 4960, reporting to the president, with outside exempt-organization counsel remaining on the endowment computation for the first year. Week 12 is one week faster than the 13-week median of this book, and one week slower than the 11-week median of the 52 general counsel searches. Day 19 is two days faster than the 21-day median of this book. The replacement window on a general counsel search is 12 months.

The shortlist was counsel who had already prepared a Form 990 and briefed a board on section 4960, not corporate tax lawyers reading the exemption rules for the first time. We hired our first general counsel in 12 weeks.

The other 2 of the 14 did not end in an accepted offer. In both, the requisition asked one person to prepare the Form 990, compute the section 4968 tax, and serve as board secretary. The shortlist, delivered on the 21-day median, showed those were different lawyers. That scoping problem is the line between this page and the nonprofit and tax-exempt speciality. Interim cover, when a board needs someone in the chair before a permanent general counsel starts, is a separate book from these 14 retained searches: 60+ interim and fractional engagements, with a median of 7 days from first call to start. That path is interim legal talent.

• IRS Data Book, 2025, Publication 55-B (April 2026) — Table 1-2 filings, Table 2-4 application closures, Table 2-5 Form 8976, Table 2-6 master file, Table 3-5 examinations.
• Public Law 119-21 (4 July 2025) — section 70415 (section 4968) and section 70416 (section 4960), effective for taxable years beginning after 31 December 2025.
• 26 U.S.C. § 4968 — 1.4, 4, and 8 percent rates, the 3,000-student gate, and the student-adjusted endowment.
• 26 U.S.C. § 4960 and 26 U.S.C. § 11 — excess-compensation excise at the 21 percent corporate rate, on remuneration above $1 million.
• Candid, 2024 Nonprofit Compensation Report (8 August 2024) — median chief executive compensation of $132,077 for fiscal year 2022.
• Bloomberg Law (2 June 2026) — matching-firm associate base of $235,000 to $455,000, effective 1 July 2026.
• ACC 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, Executive Summary (16 September 2025) — Attorney and Senior Attorney median base. No exempt-organization dollar.