Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
The nonprofit sector employs 10% of the nation’s private sector workforce. It contributes at least 5% of the nation’s GDP. Yet digging into the trends and activities behind these numbers to understand the sector’s revenue, spending, services, employment, and volunteering is not simple.
As government, civic and business leaders address a wide range of serious challenges, many will reach out to nonprofit groups for help only to find themselves hampered by a lack of up-to-date information on this important sector in our society. Those needing to understand and track trends in nonprofit revenue, spending, service provision, employment, volunteering and other critical aspects of philanthropic activity will find that most of this information, when available at all, is two years old or more. This is too late to deal with problems as they arise, or to signal to communities and policymakers that new challenges are emerging. What’s more, information that is available is sometimes inaccurate, due to problems with misclassification, inconsistent reporting and other data errors. In short, despite employing 10% of our nation’s private sector workforce and contributing at least 5% to the nation’s GDP, the nonprofit sector sorely lacks timely and accurate data.
Since 2008, the Aspen Institute Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation has convened leading figures in the field of nonprofit research and data to discuss and assess our nation’s nonprofit data collection system. These meetings have provided a unique and neutral forum for discussion, deliberation, information-sharing and consensus-building.
Primary participants in the Nonprofit Data Project include representatives from:
Together these groups play a critical role in informing our society of the size and scope of the nonprofit sector, the level of charitable giving and volunteering, the contribution of the sector to the nation’s economy, the level of employment in the nonprofit sector, nonprofit performance, and other important aspects of social sector activity.
Form 990 Reports and Resources
Browse past resources from PSI and its partners on the impact of making IRS Form 990 data searchable and available free to the public.
