COMPARATIVE NONPROFIT SECTOR / UNITED NATIONS NON-PROFIT HANDBOOK PROJECT
Project: COMPARATIVE NONPROFIT SECTOR / UNITED NATIONS NONPROFIT HANDBOOK PROJECT
Sponsors: Atlantic Philanthropies, Ford Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, Ministry of Social Affairs (Denmark) , C.S. Mott Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Skoll Foundation, United Nations Volunteers , UN Development Programme, and others
Status: In process
IPS Staff: Lester M. Salamon, Helen Stone Tice, Wojciech Sokolowski, Megan Haddock, Mimi Bilzor and Chelsea Newhouse
Purpose and Approach
The Comparative Nonprofit Sector/United Nations (UN) Nonprofit Handbook Project seeks to gener-ate reliable statistical data on the civil society sector, philanthropy, and volunteering in countries worldwide; to analyze such data, and to make the results broadly available. The project grows out of the increased need for basic information about civil society organizations as a result of a dramatic “as-sociational revolution” and reappraisal of the roles of the market and state that have taken place over recent decades. To meet this need, the project mobilized a network of Associates to generate data in over 40 countries. Working with the UN Statistics Division, project staff formulated a Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts to guide statistical agencies in maintaining these basic data as part of regular national economic statistics; 32 countries are now implementing this handbook.
Results
This project has increased the visibility of the civil society sector in policy debates worldwide and it has contributed to numerous tangible policy changes. IPS Center for Civil Society Studies (CCSS) staff developed guidance materials and hosted training workshops for implementing countries, 10 of which have already produced the nonprofit accounts recommended in this handbook. The Center has established sufficient credibility among key statistical oversight agencies to function as a source of ex-pert input into the statistical system’s efforts to acknowledge the nonprofit sector. This has included input into the redesign of the System of National Accounts, and the industrial classification system, as a whole. The Center was also invited to draft chapters on nonprofits in two additional UN documents, both of which will have impacts on the clarity with which existing statistical systems portray nonprofit institutions.
Selected Publications
United Nations Statistics Division, Salamon, L. et. al. contributing (forthcoming in 2009). Companion Guide to ISIC and CPC, Chapter 6.2, Nonprofit Institutions.
Salamon, L. et. al. (2007). Measuring Civil Society and Volunteering. Available at ccss.jhu.edu.
Salamon, L., et. al. (2004). Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector, Volume II. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Summary available ccss.jhu.edu.
U.N. Statistics Division (2003). Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts. New York: United Nations. Available at ccss.jhu.edu.
To learn more about the UN Nonprofit Handbook Project, please click here.
