Category: Nonprofit Employment Data Project

The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise in George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government is pleased to announce the release of a new report, Nonprofit Employment in the States, 2017-2022, from the George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data Project (GMU-NED) focusing on nonprofit employment and wages in 53 states and territories between 2017 and 2022. A supplementary data dashboard provides field-level data over this same period.

This report follows up on our December 2024 Nonprofit Employment Report which provided an overview of national-level data on nonprofit employment and wages between 2017 and 2022 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Drawing on this same dataset, Nonprofit Employment in the States examines state-level 501(c)(3) nonprofit employment and wages in 2022, how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted nonprofit employment in the states and territories, and how state-level nonprofit employment had recovered as of 2022. Due to the unique nature of the underlying dataset, we are also able to compare nonprofit employment and wages to their counterparts in the for-profit sector during this crucial period. The report is structured around five key findings:

1. Nonprofits are a major employer in virtually every state and territory;
2. Nonprofit wages are a crucial component of state economies;
3. Nonprofits in most states retained more of their workforce than their for-profit counterparts in 2020 during the onset of the COVID pandemic;
4. However, nonprofits in most states struggled to keep up with for-profits during the first two years of recovery from the pandemic in 2021 and 2022; and
5. Nonprofit wages rose faster than for-profit wages in the majority of states during the recovery period.

To supplement this report, we have developed a data dashboard, which provides additional information on the number of nonprofit establishments operating in each state, the fields in which they are active, and how this changed during and in the years immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic. For even more granular data, we invite those interested to consult our GMU Nonprofit Works website that provides user-guided access to these data points down to the county and metro statistical area (MSA) levels, and enables users to compare nonprofits to the government sector, in addition to for-profit businesses.

Led by Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson, in collaboration with his Center faculty colleagues Dr. Mirae Kim and Dr. Stefan Toepler, the GMU-NED Project aims to continue and expand on the important prior work of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Civil Society Studies. Produced by former Johns Hopkins Project Manager and current GMU-NED Research Consultant Chelsea Newhouse and Dr. Abramson, this new report and field-level data dashboard provide important insights into the crucial economic role of the nonprofit sector in state and territorial economies.

The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise is grateful to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation for its continuing support of this work. 

To read the full report, please click here.

To explore the field-level data dashboard click here.

To learn more about the GMU-NED Project, click here.

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For press inquiries, contact: Chelsea Newhouse, [email protected]

If you would like to keep up-to-date on new data, initiatives, and developments in the nonprofit employment and wage data space, please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list here.

Explore 30+ years of comparative and contextual data on nonprofit employment, establishments, and wages

We are happy to announce the launch of the new Nonprofit Works: An Interactive Database on Nonprofit Employment and Wages, fully re-developed and updated by the George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data (GMU-NED) Project with support from the C.S. Mott Foundation! Nonprofit Works is accessible at https://gmu-nonprofit-works.org.

The nonprofit sector is a vital part of the employment landscape of the U.S., employing the third largest workforce and generating the third largest payroll of any of the 18 industries into which statistical authorities divide the American economy—larger than all branches of manufacturing combined, and behind only retail trade and accommodation and food services. What is more, nonprofits employ nearly 89% of all workers providing community, food, housing, and emergency relief services, more than 66% of all workers in hospitals, and 35% of all social services workers in the country. These organizations are essential threads in our safety nets, without which more people would slip through and more communities would struggle.

Without ready access to hard data, however, nonprofit leaders and advocates often find themselves at a disadvantage in countering gross misperceptions about the considerable scale and economic contribution of these organizations or in alerting sector leaders to important sector trends, such as staffing and funding shortfalls.

This is where Nonprofit Works comes in by making it easy to access, download, and use the best available data on the nonprofit sector’s vital role as employers, wage payers, and service providers in our communities. As such, the new site comes at a critical time for the nonprofit sector, as it faces unprecedented challenges to its funding—including threats to government grants and payments and declining individual giving.

Through GMU-Nonprofit Works’ easy-to-use Data Explorer, you will be able to quickly answer crucial questions like:

• How many people work for nonprofits in your state, county, or city?
• In what fields are these nonprofit jobs concentrated?
• How do nonprofit jobs and wages compare to those in for-profit companies or government agencies working in the same fields?
• How much have nonprofits contributed to job growth?
• What key trends are affecting nonprofit employment or wages over a chosen time period?

It is our hope that GMU-Nonprofit Works will fill a gap in the tools available to nonprofit leaders, advocates, and researchers. We are eager to hear from users about their experience with the site and how these data are used. Please feel free to reach out to us with questions, comments, suggestions, use cases, and any other feedback you may have as you explore the site.

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About the Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University
The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise seeks to improve the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, and social enterprise through research, training, public education, and other initiatives that engage those who care about these important institutions and activities. Current major interests are: the state of the regional, national, and international nonprofit sectors; increasing the usefulness and accessibility of employment and other government data on the nonprofit sector; nonprofit-government relations; the role of foundations and philanthropy in our society; nonprofit accountability, governance, and effectiveness; global civil society; and social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. Mason’s center is a long-time member of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC), the major association of university-based, nonprofit research centers in the U.S. Core center faculty members include Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson, Dr. Mirae Kim, and Dr. Stefan Toepler.

 
About the George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data Project (GMU-NED)
The George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data (GMU-NED) Project generates new information on economic trends in the nonprofit sector and produces cutting-edge reports on key components of the nonprofit economy in regions and states across the country. These reports demonstrate the significant economic scale and importance of the nonprofit sector on the national, state, and regional levels. To produce these reports, the GMU-NED Project draws on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to document the size, composition, distribution, and growth of nonprofit employment and wages. The GMU-NED Project is also working to increase the usefulness and accessibility of other federal data on the nonprofit sector beyond BLS workforce data. The GMU-NED project is led by Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson, in collaboration with his Center faculty colleagues Dr. Stefan Toepler and Dr. Mirae Kim, and project consultant Chelsea Newhouse, and is supported by a generous grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

• As of 2022, the nonprofit sector’s 12.8 million workers made it the third largest employer in the U.S. non-government economy.

• Between 2019 and 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, nonprofit employment declined by 580,000, or 4.5%, but nonprofits fared better than for-profits overall, which shed nearly 7% of their workers.

• However, nonprofits faced challenges in re-staffing in 2021 and 2022, lagging behind their for-profit counterparts. This left the nonprofit sector with a workforce 1.4% smaller than it enjoyed in 2019, while for-profit entities grew their workforce by 2.2%.

• As a result, nonprofits lost ground to for-profit counterparts in terms of market share. The nonprofit share of the total non-government workforce decreased from 10.2% in 2017 to 9.9% in 2022, reflecting losses in nearly all fields in which they are significantly active.

• Overall, nonprofit average annual wages per employee remained nearly equal to those paid by for-profits in 2022—and were much higher than for-profit wages in many of the key nonprofit fields.

As we approach the 5-year anniversary of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, these new data from the BLS provide important insight into both the strengths of and challenges faced by the nonprofit sector both during and after the pandemic. The picture that emerges is of a sector that, though resilient, continues to confront obstacles in fully recovering from pandemic-era shocks. Overall, as detailed in the report, as of 2022, nonprofits had restored nearly 70% of the more than half-million workforce losses they suffered in 2020—but that left significant ground to cover to get back to the employment levels they enjoyed in 2019 in several key fields, and even further to go to catch up to where the sector’s workforce would have been without those losses.

Led by Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson, in collaboration with his Center faculty colleagues Dr. Stefan Toepler and Dr. Mirae Kim, the GMU-NED Project aims to continue and expand on the important prior work of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Civil Society Studies. Produced by former Johns Hopkins Project Manager and current GMU-NED Research Consultant Chelsea Newhouse, in collaboration with GMU Nonprofit Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson, this new report also previews the Project’s plans for further explorations of the these new BLS data, including the imminent launch of the new George Mason University Nonprofit Works data explorer site that will allow users to explore and download the data they need to support their work. The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise is grateful to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation for its continuing support of this work.

To read the full report, please click here.

To learn more about the GMU-NED Project, click here.

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For press inquiries, contact:

Aurora King, [email protected]

If you would like to keep up-to-date on new data, initiatives, and developments in the nonprofit employment and wage data space, please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list here.