The expanding nonprofit sector contributes more to the U.S. economy now than a decade ago. Between 1998 and 2005, the number of nonprofits surged from 1.1 million to 1.4 million. In 2006, nonprofits contributed $666 billion to the economy and accounted for 5 percent of GDP, 8 percent of the economy's wages, and nearly 10 percent of jobs. But nonprofits face devastating recession-driven revenue shortages that could reverse this trend as donors cut back and foundation endowments shrink.
Urban Institute researchers study the role and impact of nonprofits, performance measurement, nonprofit governance, and charitable giving and volunteering trends. Read more.
Eugene Steuerle, one of the nation's most respected public policy experts, whose portfolio ranges from taxes and federal spending on children to entitlements and the vitality of nonprofits, has rejoined the Urban Institute as an Institute fellow and the Richard B. Fisher
The World Bank's East of the River Initiative provided two years of technical assistance to help four District nonprofits develop the capacity to evaluate outcomes. A new Urban Institute report, Evaluation Matters: Lessons from Youth-Serving Organizations, examines the agencies' progress and highlights the conditions and factors promoting and frustrating effective evaluation strategies.
Nonprofits face growing demands to demonstrate their impact. Their ability to report on program performance is essential to organizational legitimacy and financial survival. This report chronicles the evaluation experiences of four youth-serving nonprofits that participated in the East of the River Initiative, a multi-year effort to increase the capacity of agencies to assess their performance. We detail key successes and challenges with the goal of sparking a dialogue between nonprofits, funders, and technical assistance providers about the proper value of evaluation in the sector.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita led to a myriad of legal needs in the Gulf Coast area at a time when the region's legal infrastructure was weakened. Equal Justice Works implemented the Katrina Legal Initiative, an innovative legal aid disaster relief program to assist the affected communities. This report details the implementation of this program; describes the program goals, activities, and impacts; analyzes whether the program met the stated goals; and offers recommendations for comparable programs in the future. Lessons learned from the Katrina Legal Initiative can help to inform future disaster relief efforts on the part of the legal community.
This series of fact sheets provides a quick overview of the nonprofit sector in each of the nine parishes that comprise Central Louisiana – Allen, Avoyelles, Catahoula, Grant, LaSalle, Natchitoches, Rapides, Vernon, and Winn. Each fact sheet provides information on the number of nonprofits and congregations found in the parish; the types of services offered; basic financial measures, such as total revenues, expenses, assets, and liabilities; sources of revenue; and a measure of fiscal health. The fact sheets also include basic demographic information for the parish, such as total population, median age, race-ethnic composition and median household income. A companion report, A Profile of Nonprofit Organizations in Central Louisiana, provides a detailed analysis of the size, scope, fiscal health, and other dimensions of the sector.
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The expanding nonprofit sector contributes more to the U.S. economy now than a decade ago. Between 1998 and 2005, the number of nonprofits surged from 1.1 million to 1.4 million. In 2006, nonprofits contributed $666 billion to the economy and accounted for 5 percent of GDP, 8 percent of the economy's wages, and nearly 10 percent of jobs. But nonprofits face devastating recession-driven revenue shortages that could reverse this trend as donors cut back and foundation endowments shrink.