SubsidyScope, a project of the Pew Charitable Trust, has opened a website to present data on the nonprofit/federal government linkage.
An excerpt from the website Overview.
“Subsidyscope presents government data and summary statistics on federal programs and tax policies that provide subsidies to nonprofit organizations. It is challenging to assemble and present spending and subsidy data regarding the nonprofit sector because the federal government does not identify nonprofits as a distinct budget category. Further, federal budget data are of uncertain quality; specifically, the data available through USAspending.gov are incomplete because certain program information is missing for a number of records, making it difficult to discern which specific agencies and programs may be awarding funds to nonprofits.
“Nonetheless, while Subsidyscope’s analysis found many data quality issues with grant, contract and risk transfer information, we discovered that the nonprofit sector is overwhelmingly subsidized through indirect means, namely through tax subsidies. Subsidyscope determined that the government data on tax subsidies is generally of higher quality than data on grants, contracts and risk transfers because tax expenditures are estimated by one agency, the Treasury Department, while the data on grants, contracts and risk transfers originate from many different agencies that differ in interpretation of, and compliance with, reporting requirements. Thus, the highest quality data coincide with the largest source of subsidies to the nonprofit sector.
“One of the oldest sectors in our economy, nonprofits have had a constantly evolving relationship with the federal government—from their roots in colonial voluntary organizations to the robust sector of nearly 1.8 million nonprofits that exists today in the United States. As the Urban Institute reports, in 2007:
• the nonprofit sector accounted for 5 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product;
• the sector owns close to 5 percent of private sector net worth; and
• it employs over 8 percent of the labor force (excluding volunteers).”
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.