Titles are evolving faster than authority

Among the 11 large U.S.-headquartered international NGOs, only CARE USA has elevated a Chief Revenue Officer to its top-five compensation tier. The IRS Form 990 filings are clear: the senior revenue function at most of these organizations is still organized around Development, Advancement, Philanthropy, and Marketing. That fact tells you more about organizational strategy than any theory of change document.

Job architecture reveals a lot about an organization’s strategy. The roles an organization funds at the senior level, the titles it creates, and the authority it attaches to them are structural decisions. They reveal which problems the organization has committed to solving and which it has committed to naming without solving. When compensation data and job title vocabulary diverge from strategic rhetoric, the compensation data is the more reliable indicator of actual intent.

In 2025, official development assistance fell by 23.1%, the largest single-year contraction ever recorded, following the deepest cut this century in 2024. Further reductions of 5.8% are projected for 2026 (OECD, Cuts in Official Development Assistance, 2025). The structural dependence on grant funding long predates any particular aid contraction; what has changed is the cost of not addressing it.

CARE USA has done something structurally specific

According to its most recent IRS Form 990 (fiscal year ending June 2024, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 13-1685039), CARE USA's top-five compensated executives include a Chief Revenue Officer (Sarah Taylor Peace, $353,112), a structural separation between revenue authority and traditional fundraising that no other organization in the sample has made.

The structural choice is not new. CARE's Form 990 filings list a Chief Revenue Officer every year since fiscal 2019; its filings through fiscal 2017 show no such role. The role has held through the largest single-year ODA contraction in history. Sarah Taylor Peace describes her remit in her own public language as leading "revenue generation across all channels," a vocabulary that is multi-channel and target-oriented rather than donor-cultivation-oriented. The other ten organizations have had at least seven years to follow.

Whether the role carries formal P&L authority or earned-revenue mandates is not visible in the public record; the original recruitment posting is not publicly available. But the structural separation has been made, sustained for at least seven years, and publicly described in revenue-model terms. In the public record across the 11 organizations examined, only CARE has made it.

The other ten organizations tell a different story.

The most recent Form 990 filings for Mercy Corps (EIN 91-1148123), the International Rescue Committee (EIN 13-5660870), Save the Children US (EIN 06-0726487), World Vision US (EIN 95-1922279), Partners in Health (EIN 04-3567502), Plan International USA (EIN 13-5661832), PATH (EIN: 91-1157127), FHI 360 (EIN: 23-7413005), Heifer International (EIN: 35-1019477), and Helen Keller International (EIN: 13-5562162) show no Chief Revenue Officer in the top-five compensation tier. Not one.

What they show instead: Chief Development Officer, Chief Advancement & Communications Officer, VP High Impact Philanthropy, Chief Mobilization Marketing Officer, SVP/Chief Partner Development Officer, Head of Individual Philanthropy. These are meaningful roles, and the professionals holding them are doing important work. But they are, structurally, fundraising roles, organized around donors, cultivation cycles, grant pipelines, and foundation relations. The titles describe the work.

At Mercy Corps (rebranding Prosper Global), the senior revenue-facing roles in the most recent filing are the Chief Development Officer, the Vice President of High Impact Philanthropy, and the Chief Marketing & Communications Officer. At IRC, they are the Vice President of Philanthropy and the Chief Mobilization Marketing Officer. At World Vision US, the Senior VP and Chief Partner Development Officer occupies a top-five compensation slot. Partners in Health places both a Chief Advancement & Communications Officer and a Chief Development Officer in its top compensation tier. The pattern is consistent across organizations of different sizes, missions, and geographies. It is a sector pattern.

The pattern is reinforced at the operational level

Mercy Corps posted a U.S.-based Interim Deputy Director, Strategic Partnerships role in approximately March 2026. The listing is publicly available via UNJobNet (https://www.unjobnet.org/jobs/detail/85104686). The responsibilities read:

“Major responsibilities include managing donor engagements such as small events and program visits, overseeing the coordination of high-profile opportunities like global conferences, and developing a range of business development and stewardship materials, including pitch decks, concept notes, proposals, and other donor-facing content.”

“Business development” here refers to the production of fundraising collateral: pitch decks and concept notes for donors, and proposals for foundations. The posting uses the language of revenue diversification to describe what is, structurally, fundraising work. This is the operational signature of the title-authority gap.

This is not a Mercy Corps problem. The same analytical test applied to Strategic Partnerships postings across the sector produces the same result. The title is not new. An IRC Strategic Partnerships Officer job description from 2017 describes the same core work: donor research, CRM coordination, proposal support. What has changed is the rhetorical register, not the scope of work. The sector has been upgrading vocabulary without upgrading the underlying architecture.

Job titles are the cheapest form of strategic transformation.

They can be changed in an afternoon. They signal seriousness to donors, boards, and job candidates without requiring any restructuring of authority, accountability, or revenue logic. Renaming a Director of Development as a Director of Strategic Partnerships, or a Head of Fundraising as a VP of Revenue Mobilization, does not generate non-grant revenue. The work must change, the authority must follow, and the compensation structure must catch up.

An organization that runs on grants remains structurally fragile regardless of how many grants it holds or how many senior titles invoke the language of diversification. The 990 is the public snapshot of where the commitment actually sits.

Claudio Tanca is a revenue diversification consultant and the founder of Beyond Grants

Source list

CARE USA — IRS Form 990, FY ending June 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131685039

CARE USA — Sarah Taylor Peace, Chief Revenue Officer, leadership bio page https://www.care.org/about-us/leadership/sarah-taylor-peace/  

CARE USA — Sarah Taylor Peace, LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-taylor-peace-b0b6a23a/  

Mercy Corps — IRS Form 990, FY ending June 2025 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/911148123

International Rescue Committee — IRS Form 990, FY ending Sept 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/135660870

Save the Children US — IRS Form 990, FY ending Dec 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/60726487

World Vision US — IRS Form 990, FY ending Sept 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/951922279

Partners in Health — IRS Form 990, FY ending June 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/43567502

Plan International USA — IRS Form 990, FY ending June 2025 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/135661832

PATH — IRS Form 990, FY ending Dec 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/911157127

FHI 360 — IRS Form 990, FY ending Sept 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237413005

Heifer International — IRS Form 990, FY ending June 2025 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/351019477

Helen Keller International — IRS Form 990, FY ending June 2024 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/135562162

Mercy Corps — Interim Deputy Director, Strategic Partnerships (UNJobNet posting) https://www.unjobnet.org/jobs/detail/85104686

IRC — Strategic Partnerships Officer Job Description (September 2017, historical baseline) https://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/document/1530/jobdescription-strategicpartnershipsofficer-sept2017.docx

OECD — Cuts in Official Development Assistance (2025) https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/06/cuts-in-official-development-assistance_e161f0c5/full-report.html Updated September 2026: revised the description of CARE's Chief Revenue Officer tenure to reflect IRS Form 990 filings.