Nonprofits, charities and charitable trusts registered with the state must file an IRS Form 990 with the Minnesota attorney general's office each year. Most of the information was supplied to the Star Tribune by the organizations using data taken from the 2015 Form 990s or audited consolidated financial statements.
Nonprofit organizations are required to list compensation of the five highest-paid employees, other than officers, directors and trustees, if those individuals receive more than $100,000 in annual compensation.
The Star Tribune's list contains the top officer and that person's total compensation, including salary, bonus and other incentive compensation, other reportable compensation, contributions to retirement and other deferred compensation and nontaxable benefits.
We contacted each organization by e-mail or phone and asked them to enter their information in an online form. For other organizations we entered data from their publicly available 990 forms or other financial statements.