Project: NONPROFIT EMPLOYMENT DATA PROJECT  

Sponsors: Atlantic Philanthropies
Status: In process
IPS Staff: Lester M. Salamon, Stephanie Geller, S. Wojciech Sokolowski, Mimi Bilzor, and Claudine Holaska

Purpose and Approach

The Nonprofit Employment Data Project is providing a more detailed and timely picture than previously available of key economic trends affecting American nonprofit organizations, such as the distribution of nonprofit employment, nonprofit vs. for-profit competition, and nonprofit wage levels. To do so, the project has tapped a new source of data on nonprofit employment generated by the federal-state unemployment insurance program. This program has long collected data on nonprofit places of employment but has never separated the private employment between nonprofit and for-profit establishments. Through work with state employment security offices and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Center has identified ways to achieve this separation and to analyze the nonprofit employment picture much more effectively than previous data have allowed.

Results

Working collaboratively with state and regional nonprofit associations, the Nonprofit Employment Data Project has issued over 20 state and regional nonprofit employment reports that have usefully documented the immense economic role of the nonprofit sector in communities throughout the country. These reports have been used extensively to increase the visibility of the nonprofit sector and to acquaint policymakers, the press, and the public at large with the economic role of these organizations. The project has also produced national reports that have begun to change conventional beliefs about nonprofit employment and nonprofit versus for-profit wages in industries.

Publications

Salamon, L.M. and W. Sokolowski (2005). “Nonprofit Organizations: New Insights from QCEW Data,” Monthly Labor Review, pp. 19-26. Available at www.jhu.edu/ccss/research/bulletins.htm.

Salamon, L.M. and S. Geller (2005). “Nonprofit Employment in the Greater Washington Region,” in The Business of Doing Good in Greater Washington: How the Nonprofit Sector Contributes to the Region’s Economy. Washington, DC: The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, pp. 27-45.

State Nonprofit Employment Bulletins (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies, Center for Civil Society Studies. Available at www.jhu.edu/ccss/research/bulletins.htm.