The nonprofit sector employs some 12.3 million people and accounts for more than 10 percent of the workforce in the United States. Payrolls exceed that of construction, finance and transportation. The number of nonprofits has increased by almost 75 percent between 2000 and 2016. There are 1.425 million nonprofits in the United States, including almost 1.3 million charitable nonprofits and 126,676 private foundations.
There’s no shortage of numbers in “Nonprofit Impact Matters: How America’s Charitable Nonprofits Strengthen Communities and Improve Lives.” Rick Cohen, chief operating officer and chief communications officer at the National Council of Nonprofits in Washington, D.C., joins the program to talk about what it all means. The report compiles data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other sources to paint a complete picture of the nonprofit sector in one place.
Other nuggets in the report that come up in this episode:
- Overall, almost half of the nonprofit community’s revenue comes from fees for services, with higher education and nonprofit hospitals accounting for of much that.
- Almost a third of revenue, about 32 percent, is derived from government grants and contracts, and about 10 percent comes from individuals, either through gifts (8.7 percent) or bequests (1.5 percent).
- Foundations contribute some 3 percent to nonprofit revenue but could not possibly replace government dollars entirely. In 2017, proposed cuts of $193 billion to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over 10 years would require the Gates and Ford foundations, plus another 13 of the nation’s largest foundations to cash out their assets and shutdown to make up that shortfall.
- On average, about 3 percent of organizations engaged in lobbying at the local, state or federal levels. Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported lobbying expenditures of almost $104 million in 2016.
- Some 97 percent of nonprofits have annual budgets of less than $5 million and 88 percent of less than $500,000.
The 44-page report also examines recent troubling trends in the nonprofit sector and a look at challenges ahead for charities.
For the complete report, visit www.NonprofitImpactMatters.org
