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Nonprofit Facts and Figures

1,569,572 tax-exempt organizations, including:

997,579 public charities

118,423 private foundations

453,570 other types of nonprofit organizations, including chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations and civic leagues. Source: NCCS Business Master File 10/09

In 2006, nonprofits accounted for 8.11% of all wages and salaries paid in the United States. Source: Nonprofit Almanac 2008

There are an estimated 377,640 congregations in the United States.
Source: American Church Lists

Additional statistical information about exempt organizations is available from the IRS:

Studies (standard extracts, including lists of organizations recognized as exempt by the IRS (EO Master File data)), conducted by the IRS Statistics of Income Division;

Information about individual noncash charitable contributions; and

The ability to order custom extracts from the IRS data files.

To download and use the EO Master File data, review these instructions.

For the latest figures and quick facts please refer to THE NONPROFIT SECTOR IN BRIEF
http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/kbfiles/797/Almanac2008publicCharities.pdf

Additional Resources

The National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) is the national repository of data on the nonprofit sector in the United States. Its mission is to develop and disseminate high quality data on nonprofit organizations and their activities for use in research on the relationships between the nonprofit sector, government, the commercial sector, and the broader civil society.

Working closely with the IRS and other government agencies, private sector service organizations, and the scholarly community, NCCS builds compatible national, state, and regional databases and develops uniform standards for reporting on the activities of charitable organizations.

The Center was established in 1982 and has been a project of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP) at the Urban Institute since July 1996, when it was transferred from the research division of INDEPENDENT SECTOR.

NCCS provides online data analysis tools for those looking for information that isn’t included in the summary figures.

Custom Table Wizard
Access a broad set of national and state-level reports on nonprofits and charitable activities in the U.S. Customize filters and break down data by organization type, state, year, and other criteria.

NCCS Data Files
A description of the data and variables included in each of the different data files maintained by NCCS, including the IRS Business Master Files, the Core Files, IRS Statistics of Income Sample Files, the NCCS-GuideStar National Nonprofit Research Database, the Digitized Data, the Unified Database of Arts Organizations, and the Master file.

Download Data (Registration required, fee may apply)
Extract NCCS data for direct manipulation and analysis using statistical or database software.

Advanced Tools (Registration required, fee may apply)
A few additional NCCS data tools are available for savvy users.

For more information we encourage you to go to http://nccs.urban.org/

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