NonprofitEye

How did I make sense of the nonprofit universe before I discovered the Urban Institute (a Nonpartisian Economic and Public Policy Research Organization)? There are 11 policy centers under the umbrella of the Urban Institute. The one that rocks my boat is, of course, the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP). The mission of CNP is to promote understanding of civil society and improve nonprofit sector performance through rigorous research, clear analysis and informed policy. Even more enticing is one of CNP's programs: the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) - the national clearinghouse of data on the nonprofit sector in the United States . Current NCCS Projects include: The " Form 990 Wiki " (a collaborative website) for helping the nonprofit research and practitioner communities reason together about the draft IRS Form 990 released in June 2007 by the IRS. The goal is to develop a set of practical recommendations that have been carefu...

How many nonprofits are there in the U.S.? According to the Nonprofit Quarterly, there are 1.4 million nonprofits in the U.S. 299,000 of which were 501(c) 3's over $25K and 545,000 were non-filing under $25K. That is 845,000, NOT 1.4 million. What are the missing 568,000? Turns out they are "other nonprofits" meaning not 501 (c) 3's . 104,000 were private foundations - 501(c) 4's and the remaining 465,000 was the 501's that weren't "3's" and "4's). Now I was down to 299,000 nonprofits in the U.S. (the kind I usually think of as nonprofits--the human services, the charities, the arts, the education, etc. etc.) But we're not done yet. Of the 299,000, 39,000 of them are the hospitals & health groups I was originally looking for. That leaves us with 260,000 nonprofits - not 1.4 million. Those 39,000 hospitals (only 13% of the 299,000) spend 47% of the billions of budget dollars. Here's the data: ...