Nonprofit Impact Matters

92%

Most nonprofits are small and community-based, serving local needs: 92% spend less than $1 million annually; 88% spend less than $500,000.

> 10%

Nonprofits employ more than 10% of America’s private workforce – more jobs than in manufacturing, construction, or finance.

< 3%

Less than 3% of nonprofits lobby to advance their missions – compared to 100% that have the legal right to do so.

The report gives you free access to trusted information
about the extraordinary American treasure known as charitable nonprofits.

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What's In The Report?

America’s 1.3 million charitable nonprofits enrich the lives of everyone, in ways both seen and unseen. Nonprofit Impact Matters pulls back the curtain and tells the story of nonprofits from their perspective. It also provides practical insights and key national- and state-level data.

Nationwide, there are 12.3 million nonprofit employees and more than 64 million nonprofit board members and other volunteers.
The nonprofit sector - as a whole - earns more than 80 percent of its revenue (through fees for services and government contracts and grants), receiving another 14 percent of its revenue thanks to donations by individuals (10.2%), foundations (2.9%), and corporations (0.9%).

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If you’re not sure what the nonprofit sector means to our communities, our economy, or the important issues we face as a society – look no further. This easy-to-understand report makes it clear why everyone should care about the health of nonprofit organizations – and should rally behind critical issues that are impacting the nonprofit sector’s ability to continue its good work on behalf of us all.

Anne Wallestad,

President & CEO, BoardSource

This is a vital intervention to document, celebrate, and defend the role of nonprofits in our communities, economy, and culture. The National Council of Nonprofits has done it again.

Darren Walker,

President, Ford Foundation

Knowledge is power, and this engaging resource provides nonprofit leaders and supporters the information they need to advocate for the continued vitality of their missions. As a former congressional staffer, I also think this should be required reading for our elected officials as they consider how policy changes will impact this vital sector of our society.

Amanda Tyler,

Executive Director, BJC

We Can Face Our Challenges Together

Operating a nonprofit is not easy these days. Several challenges exist. Some are internal to each organization. Others are external and larger than any one organization can address alone. By tapping into the power of nonprofit networks, including for advocacy, nonprofits can continue improving lives and creating more equitable and thriving communities.

Ten years after the Great Recession began, the public’s needs for human services were even greater in three-quarters of the states than before the recession.

The increase in needs for human services has been documented by multiple recent studies cited and explained in the report. Those increasing needs have strained the ability of many nonprofits, especially small to midsized nonprofits in local communities, to keep up with the need for services.

All nonprofits, just like for-profit businesses, need a reliable and supportive public policy environment.

Nonprofit missions are vulnerable to actions by policymakers who, whether intentionally or not:

Take away needed resources, such as by levying taxes on tax-exempt nonprofits and limiting or eliminating charitable giving incentives;
Impose unfunded mandates by cutting government budgets and expecting nonprofits and foundations to fill the voids;
Establish unwieldy regulatory burdens;
Interfere with nonprofits’ legal independence; and
Otherwise change laws in ways that disrupt the work of nonprofits.

Policy threats occur not just at the federal level, but also at the state and local levels.

A change in federal law can have nationwide ramifications, but changes in a state’s laws can be just as consequential for the nonprofits in that state. And data show the odds of policy changes being made are much greater at the state than the federal level.

Nonprofits can overcome these challenges by embracing the proven wisdom that more can be accomplished by working together than by operating separately.

Nonprofits’ strength is in our collective numbers. Nonprofits exist in every community, are closest to the problems, and understand the issues.

Since nonprofits see the solutions to the community’s challenges firsthand, nonprofits should be sharing their insights with policymakers to help them make informed decisions. Policymakers need and deserve to hear the voices of their nonprofit constituents.

Nonprofits have the constitutional right, statutory authority, and moral obligation to advocate and even lobby on behalf of our organizations and the individuals and communities they serve. In fact, charitable nonprofits can—and absolutely should—speak out on matters of public policy that affect their missions.

Recently-Released Nonprofit Publications

Changes to the Giving Landscape, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (October 2019).

This report analyzes effects of the 2008 Great Recession on charitable giving across various donor demographic groups and examines differences pre- and post-recession.

Ending the Nonprofit Starvation Cycle, a report and related articles by foundation leaders (The Bridgespan Group, September 2019).

Working with five foundations, Bridgespan identified persistent chronic underfunding problems among the 15 largest foundations that threaten the financial health of grantees - and identified possible solutions.

It’s September: Do You Know Where Your Donors Are? First Half of 2019 Shows Donor Drop, Nonprofit Quarterly (September 2019)

This article reports that the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s 2019 Second Quarter Report continues to show alarming declines in number of donors and dollars raised, a trend that NPQ warned about in an earlier article based on Giving USA’s 2018 data.

Image at top of page: Supporters of the Connecticut Community Nonprofit Alliance telling legislators that community services are essential (image courtesy of the Alliance).