Mapping the non-profit sector in the United States: implications for research

Abstract

The need for a national typology of the US non-profit sector has long been recognised. A typology which could better define and describe the variety and diversity of non-profit organisations by type or major function will serve numerous research and public policy uses. This article describes the essential elements of the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE), developed over almost a decade after extensive consultation with agencies in the non-profit sector and the United States government. The article reports an initial analysis of the classification of nearly one million non-profit organisations in the US, and comparisons are made with earlier estimates in Dimensions of the Independent Sector.Based on these findings, changes are proposed to this biennial statistical profile of the US non-profit sector. The importance of developing national typologies of non-profit organisations is discussed as a basis for comparative international research.For nearly two decades, researchers and policy-makers have acknowledged a need for a national typology of the US non-profit sector that would better define and describe the variety and diversity of non-profit organisations by type or major function. Such a system, similar to the Standard Industrial Code, was regarded as a major priority in order to provide a common set of definitions and language and so offer a scheme for conducting research to better understand this sector.In 1987, the non-profit sector in the United States had expenditures of over $280 billion and employed nearly eight million people. While the aggregate financial trends of the sector have been measured in editions of Dimensions of the Independent Sector since 1984, Hodgkinson andWeitzman (1989) could only provide aggregate measures of the sector across eleven subcategories of the Standard Industrial Code. Therefore, no analysis was available by major functions by whole categories of

Classificatory Struggles in the Nonprofit Sector: The Formation of the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities, 1969-1987

“…In his historical review Karl (1987: 984) notes that "[representatives of philanthropy] set about collecting information about themselves and analyzing it to see what in fact they were doing and to justify it." However, once advocates of the nonprofit sector seized this new societal position, they also soon realized the lack of sufficient data and shared terminology to make sectorwide claims and cross-sectoral comparisons (Hodgkinson andWeitzman 1993, 1994;Slater and David 1993). The Filer Commission, for example, in its first meetings noted a lack of data on its supposed focus of investigation and commissioned studies over two years, the results of which were published as Research Papers in 1977.…”

“…A number of foundations and corporations funded one of the Independent Sector's main initiatives (and an original recommendation of the Filer Commission)-a research committee that would provide funding and support for scholarship on the nonprofit sector (Hodgkinson 1987). Its goal, as summarized by the Independent Sector's president Brian O'Connell in a 1980 board of directors meeting, was the "collection of basic data and other baseline information on giving, volunteering, and the role and impact of the sector as a first step in building a research effort capable of providing the body of knowledge necessary to accurately define, describe, chart, and otherwise understand this sector and the ways it can be of greatest service to society" (Independent Sector 1980).…”

“…In other words, the fact that nonprofits produced social goods for public purpose was not enough; their activities also had to be measured in the same currency used to describe the value of the private sector (Hall 1992;Hodgkinson andWeitzman 1993, 1994;Karl 1987;Rudney and Weitzman 1983;Slater and David 1993). As the Filer Commission concluded, the benefits of the nonprofit sector were well known in terms of "eradicating disease" or "increasing educational access" (Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs 1975), but it was more difficult to measure the financial inputs and outputs of charities and compare them to the work of corporations.…”

A European perspective: The Nonprofit Almanac and the development of European profiles

“…European or other attempted replications of the Independent Sector's mapping may or may not find the US categorisation to be suitable, but certainly there is a need for international convergence of such classifications, probably at the two-digit level so that individual countries have scope to give more local emphasis and apply greater detail at the three-digit level (Hodgkinson, 1990;Salamon and Anheier, 1992c). In pursuing industrial or other categorisations, however, it should be remembered that most statistics on the non-profit sector are extracted from, or dominated by, national income accounts (or their methods), thus reflecting economic magnitudes and issues.…”

Measuring the non-profit sector in the US economy: conceptual framework and methodology

“…To date NCCS has completed the major group and major activity codes on a series of IRS and SOI databases, and we are completing the governance codes on the SOI databases for the next edition of the Nonprofit Almanac. (For a fuller description of NTEE, see Hodgkinson, 1990. )…”