March 9, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Nearly 5,600 American nonprofit organizations work overseas or focus on international affairs, accounting for approximately 2 percent of all charities
in the United States and slightly more than 2 percent of all nonprofit revenue, according to a new report published by the Urban Institute, in Washington.
Total revenue for international groups in 2003 totaled $17.7-billion, a jump of 13 percent over the previous year’s total of $15.9-billion.
Analyzing information from the informational tax returns that charities filed for the 2003 fiscal year, researchers found that development and assistance organizations make up 73 percent of all international charities, and account for $15.7-billion in annual revenue, 89 percent of revenue earned by all international groups. Donations of medicine, food, and other noncash items made up approximately one-third of that figure.
Overseas Exchanges
Charities that promote international understanding and foreign exchanges represent 16 percent of the organizations and 6.3 percent of the revenue, while groups that focus on foreign policy represent 10 percent of the organizations and 4.8 percent of the revenue.
Three-quarters of all international nonprofit groups had annual revenue of less than $500,000. Fourteen percent had annual revenue between $500,000 and $1,999,999, and 11 percent had annual revenue of $2-million or more.
Government grants accounted for 20 percent of the total revenue of international charities.
But while organizations with annual revenue of $2-million or more account for only 11 percent of international organizations, 43 percent of all international groups receiving government grants were organizations that earned at least $2-million a year.
Reliance on government grants among development and assistance groups varied depending on the type of work the organizations do.
The study found that groups that focus on relief and health derived 13 percent and 20 percent, respectively, of their annual revenue from government grants, while agriculture and economic-development groups both count on government grants for 39 percent of their annual revenue.
The report, “The International Charitable Nonprofit Subsector in the United States,” is available free online at http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411276.
