Is Sutter Health a Good Charity?
Sutter Health has a NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score of 46/100 (D), based on operating reserves, multi-year revenue consistency, and officer compensation relative to revenue. Current-officer compensation: $32,813,627.
This page answers a common question about U.S. nonprofit financial efficiency: Is Sutter Health a Good Charity?. The answer below pulls directly from IRS Form 990 filings — the public-disclosure document every U.S. tax-exempt organization must file annually — and the NonprofitTruth efficiency rubric that combines financial-reserve, revenue-consistency, and officer-compensation factors into a single grade. Why this matters: every U.S. taxpayer subsidizes the nonprofit sector indirectly — donations are tax-deductible, nonprofit income is exempt, and many nonprofit employees benefit from sector-specific tax provisions. The public-disclosure regime exists specifically to give donors and policy-makers the data they need to judge whether the subsidy is well-spent on a given organization.
The detailed answer below uses the actual Form 990 numbers, explains how to read them, and translates the technical accounting into the donor-relevant version of the question.
Sutter Health is a health nonprofit based in Sacramento, California with IRS EIN 942788907. According to its Form 990 filing for tax year 2023, the organization reported $1.9B in total revenue, $2.1B in total expenses, and $8.6B in net assets.
A program-vs-overhead split is not shown for Sutter Health because total program service expenses (Form 990 Part IX, line 25, column B) are not carried in the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer feed this site ingests. Rather than estimate the figure, we omit it; the breakdown can be read directly from the organization's e-filed Form 990 or on Candid (GuideStar).
Compensation for current officers and key employees at Sutter Health totaled $32,813,627 in 2023, representing approximately 174.3 basis points (1.74%) of total revenue. The NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score of 46/100 weights financial health / operating reserves (40%), multi-year revenue consistency (35%), and officer compensation relative to revenue (25%), producing a grade of D.
Key Data
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Efficiency Score | 46/100 (D) |
| Total Revenue | $1.9B |
| Total Expenses | $2.1B |
| Current-Officer Compensation | $32,813,627 |
| Category | Health |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Sutter Health has a NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score of 46/100 (D), based on operating reserves, multi-year revenue consistency, and officer compensation relative to revenue. Current-officer compensation: $32,813,627.
Sutter Health reported $32,813,627 in total compensation for current officers and key employees for tax year 2023 (IRS Form 990 Part IX, line 5) — about 1.74% of the organization's $1.9B in revenue. This is an aggregate across all listed officers, not one person's salary.
Sutter Health reported $1.9B in total revenue for tax year 2023, with $8.6B in net assets.
Officer compensation at Sutter Health works out to about 1.74% of total revenue (174.3 basis points). At roughly 1.74% of revenue, officer pay sits within the typical range for an organization this size. On our rubric, the officer-compensation factor scored 93/100.
The NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score weights three factors from IRS Form 990 data: financial health / operating reserves (40%), multi-year revenue consistency (35%), and officer compensation relative to revenue (25%). It does not estimate a program-spending ratio. Sutter Health scored 46/100 (grade D).
More about Sutter Health
Sutter Health has a NonprofitTruth Efficiency Score of 46/100 (D), based on operating reserves, multi-year revenue consistency, and officer compensation relative to revenue. Current-officer compensation: $32,813,627.