Yes it can spend on salaries. In fact this is one of the failure modes of a nonprofit that a board has to watch out for: the staff (especially the executive sta

Yes it can spend on salaries. In fact this is one of the failure modes of a nonprofit that a board has to watch out for: the staff (especially the executive staff) soaking up all the fundraising with raises. Nonprofits don’t have investors who are watching their own personal financial returns carefully. The “returns” of a nonprofit are the mission. So the board has to do the work to verify that the money coming in is being used to advance the mission. You have to pay salaries to do that of course… but not overpay. > Wasn't the New York Stock Exchange a nonprofit organization for quite some time? Yes and the NFL is a nonprofit today! It exists as a neutral body to organize the league. The individual teams are for-profit.