About GMU Nonprofit Works: An Interactive Database on the U.S. Nonprofit Economy 

Background 

America's nonprofit sector employs the third largest workforce of any of the 18 industries into which statistical authorities divide the American economy as well as the third largest employee payroll. Yet, due to the way national economic data are kept, these facts are unknown to most policymakers-as well as to most leaders in the nonprofit sector itself. 

The Johns Hopkins University – Nonprofit Economic Data (JHU-NED) Project found a way to draw on a previously untapped source of data generated through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). For over 20 years, the JHU-NED Project produced cutting-edge reports on the size, composition, distribution, and growth of nonprofit employment in regions and states across the country and the U.S. as a whole drawing on this unparalleled-but previously untapped-source of data on nonprofit employment. To accomplish this, the Center pioneered a procedure for identifying nonprofit institutions (NPIs) in the BLS database and secured BLS cooperation to extract the resulting data on NPIs in aggregated form from the hundreds of records in the QCEW dataset. These reports have been instrumental in demonstrating the nonprofit sector's important role as a powerful economic engine and identifying key nonprofit trends such as the striking pattern of nonprofit employment growth and the suburbanization of nonprofit operations. States and localities have used our data to advocate for the sector and to educate policymakers and the public about the sector's vital role not only as a program and service provider, but also as a major employer and growing industry. 

In October 2022, following the passing of Center Director Lester Salamon and the subsequent closing of the JHU Center for Civil Society Studies, this work moved to the Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University with support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data (GMU-NED) Project is led by Dr. Alan Abramson, director of the Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise, in collaboration with his Center faculty colleagues Dr. Stefan Toepler and Dr. Mirae Kim and the technical assistance of former JHU-NED Project Manager Chelsea Newhouse.

Nonprofit Works was developed to make these data more readily available to a much broader array of users. With this site, users can not only access these U.S. nonprofit employment, establishment, and wage data on the national, state, county, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), and field of activity levels, but can also place those data into context by comparing nonprofits to their counterparts in other sectors. 

We believe that making these data available can have a powerful transformative impact on how nonprofits are perceived, and therefore on the support they can garner for their important work. In particular, we believe that access to these data will: 

Data are currently available at the state and county level for the years 1990-2022, and at the MSA level for 2013-2022. National data are available for 2007-2022. Please see the Methodology page for more information on data sources and limitations.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What data are available?
Nonprofit Works provides access to data on nonprofit, for-profit, government, private economy, and total economy:

How will the data be output?
Once you have made your selections, the Data Explorer will output a table showing the chosen data points. Depending on the filter selections, the number of records returned could range from a few to thousands. For readability and usability purposes, the system will display the results on screen only if the number of records returned are not in thousands. For larger datasets, please click the "Download Results" button to download an Excel file.

Why are some years or fields not shown on the second page of the Data Explorer?
Only those years and/or fields for which data are available based on the filters applied on the first page of the Explorer will be visible in the filters on the second page of the Data Explorer. For more on what is available by year, please see the Methodology page.

How do the field codes work?
Field data are available by 2-, 3-, and 4-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes. NAICS codes are hierarchical, with 2-digit “parent” fields including all data in "child" 3- and 4-digit sub-fields. NAICS 10 includes data in all fields and their sub-fields. As such, it is crucial when analyzing the data to avoid adding sub-field data to parent field data to obtain a total. For instance, NACIS 62 "Health Care and Social Assistance" already includes all employment, establishments, or wages in NAICS 624 "Social Assistance." Nonprofit Works uses the 2017 NAICS. For more about NAICS codes, please visit the NAICS website here.

Who do I contact if I have a question?
If you have any questions or encounter and issues with using the site, please contact Chelsea Newhouse.

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Nonprofit Works was made possible by the generous support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.