The Nonprofit FAQ

Published summary information on US nonprofits

(This item was prepared in 1998! The references are mostly out of date. A good deal of useful summary information is available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics at http://nccs.urban.org. The balance of this text will be revised in the future. --Ed.) The Independent Sector and the National Center for Nonprofit Boards have published What You Should Know about Nonprofits (26pp., 1997) which covers twelve frequently asked questions with links to other resouces and suggestions for further reading. It is available online at www.ncnb.org/what_you_should/ or by mail for $3.50 + $2.50 S+H from the Publications Center, P.O. Box 343, Waldorf, MD 20604-0343. (When you order by mail you also get a useful complete catalog of IS publications.) The Nathan Cummings Foundation commissioned Professor Lester Salamon of Johns Hopkins University in 1997 to do a survey of the current condition and prospects for the nonprofit sector. The result was published as Holding the Center: America's Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroads. The complete text is available online at www.ncf.org/ncf/publications/reports/holding_the_center/hc_contents.html. The Foundation will also send a printed copy of the report without charge on request from 1926 Broadway, Suite 600, New York, NY 10023. 212 787-7300 voice; 212 787-7377 fax. The National Center for Charitable Statistics publishes detailed information based on official data sources. They have useful summaries of the actual data and lists of their publications at their website: http://nccs.urban.org/ The Nonprofit Almanac, frequently updated, is the standard source for statistical information on the nonprofit sector. It is available in many libraries. "Sources of revenue for nonprofits in the US can be found on the Independent Sector web page (http://www.indepsec.org) in the research program section of the web site. I point to the Update of the Nonprofit Almanac under the Facts and Figures portion. At the end of the narrative there are some distribution tables for the past twenty years as well as annual rates of change for selected items." -- Aaron Heffron, (aaron@INDEPSEC.ORG), August 5, 1998. An earlier monograph by Professor Salamon presents the statistics about key service areas and other important generalizations on the sector using clear graphics. The text addresses the place of nonprofits in meeting many national and community needs. Published in 1992, though, America's Nonprofit Sector: A Primer depends on data from the later part of the 1980s and thus requires reference to more recent information to be completely useful. It was published by The Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003. It can be ordered online ($14.95 plus S+H) from the website fdncenter.org/. (A new edition is scheduled for publication late in 1998.) --Putnam Barber, revised August 5, 1998. Cautionary note about old sources added 4/17/08 -- PB