November 13, 1997 | Read Time: 1 minute
The National Center for Charitable Statistics now offers a glimpse of the size and scope of the non-profit world through its World-Wide Web site.
The center, which is a project of the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, located in Washington, provides a state-by-state statistical breakdown of the number and type of non-profit groups in all 50 states, as well as in the U.S. territories, based on a report it issued in the summer (The Chronicle, August 7.) By clicking on Alabama, for example, viewers can discover that there are 6,040 non-profit groups in the state that are classified as 501(c)(3) organizations by the Internal Revenue Service. Of those, 5,619 are charities, while 421 are private foundations.
The Web site also offers a breakdown of charities by type of organization. In Alabama, among charities that file informational tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service, higher-education organizations make up about 2 per cent of public charities but raise almost 17 per cent of private dollars statewide. Housing groups, on the other hand, account for 5.3 per cent of the charities in Alabama but attract just over 1 per cent of all donations.
Data for individual charities can be pulled from the Web site as well. The center provides figures for private support, total expenses, and total assets for each charity, as reported on their informational tax returns.
The data used is from 1992 and is taken from the center’s “State Nonprofit Almanac 1997: Profiles of Charitable Organizations.” The center hopes to update the site with 1994 figures soon.
To get there: Using World-Wide Web software, type http://nccs.urban.org.
