View Research by Author - Katie L. Roeger

Publications

During the Great Recession, decreases in funding and increases in service request strained public charities to do more with less. While the increase in need might encourage new public charities, the scarcity of resources could have inhibited organizations from entering the sector. According to the IRS Data Book, the IRS received nearly 30 percent fewer applications for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status since the start of the recession in 2007. In 2008, however, the IRS eliminated the advanced ruling process for 501(c)(3) organizations. This brief investigates whether or not this drop in rulings is attributable to the recession or the rule change.

The New Orleans metropolitan area has faced several challenges in the past decade: Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, and the Great Recession. Analysis of IRS Form 990 data and a survey of nonprofit human service providers find that local nonprofits employ 14,300 people and had 2010 expenditures of $558 million. While most have recovered from Katrina, one in four still uses disaster recovery funds. The lingering recession is placing financial pressure on human service providers, who operate on razor-thin margins: in 2010, revenues exceeded expenses by 0.4 percent. An appendix provides a fact sheet on each parish’s nonprofit sector.

The Nonprofit Sector in Brief summarizes and expands on The Nonprofit Almanac 2012, prepared by the National Center for Charitable Statistics and published by the Urban Institute Press. Both publications highlight the growth in the number and finances of 501(c)(3) public charities, as well as key findings on private charitable contributions and volunteering. It presents trends from 2000 to 2010 but special attention is paid to 2008 through 2010 to see the impact the recession had on the nonprofit sector. See the back cover for details on how to order a copy of The Nonprofit Almanac 2012.

In 2010, about one in eight residents (12.1 percent or 280,000 people) in the Pittsburgh region had incomes below poverty, an increase of 8.5 percent since the Great Recession started in 2007. This report gives an overview of poverty trends in the Pittsburgh region, examines how poverty is defined and measured, and identifies the groups most likely to be at risk of being poor. It also documents how nonprofit organizations responded to the recession. For example, about two-thirds reported demand for services increased, but most providers scaled back their operations because of resource constraints. An appendix provides a fact sheet on poverty and nonprofit capacity for each county in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

This brief highlights trends from the eighth edition of The Nonprofit Almanac 2011, prepared by the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute. We highlight the growth in the number and finances of 501(c)(3) public charities, as well as key findings on private charitable contributions and volunteering.

More than 275,000 organizations have lost their tax-exempt status for failing to file a return with the IRS for three consecutive years. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 required most tax-exempt organizations to file a return with the IRS and called for automatic revocation for nonprofits that failed to file a return for three consecutive years. The majority of organizations are believed to be defunct, but the IRS announced special steps to help existing nonprofits reapply for tax-exemption. This brief provides a snapshot of the nonprofits that have lost their tax exempt status and examines these organizations by type, age and location.

This compilation of state profiles from the 2010 National Survey of Nonprofit-Government Contracting and Grants, provides national and state-by-state snapshots of human service organizations that have contracts and grants with local, state and federal governments. The individual state profiles are designed to document the extent of nonprofit-government contracting, processes and problems. They also examine the impact of the recession on these organizations and the cutbacks they have made to keep their programs operating. States are also ranked according to number of grants, types of issues, and actions taken by human service nonprofits to address the challenges they face.

This report explores the results of the 2010 National Survey of Nonprofit-Government Contracting and Grants, a study of human service organizations designed to document the extent of nonprofit-government contracting, processes and problems. It also examines the impact of the recession on these organizations and the cutbacks they have made to keep their programs operating. While contracting problems are not new, many are exacerbated by the deep recession that has reduced government budgets and private contributions. Nearly 33,000 human service nonprofits have government contracts and grants, and 9,000 organizations with expenditures over 100,000 were surveyed for this study.

This brief summarizes results of the 2010 National Survey of Nonprofit-Government Contracting and Grants, a study of human service organizations designed to document the extent of nonprofit-government contracting, processes and problems. It also examines the impact of the recession on these organizations and the cutbacks they have made to keep their programs operating. While contracting problems are not new, many are exacerbated by the deep recession that has reduced government budgets and private contributions. Nearly 33,000 human service nonprofits have government contracts and grants, and 9,000 organizations with expenditures over 100,000 were surveyed for this study.

This brief highlights trends in the number and finances of 501(c)(3) public charities as well as key findings on private charitable contributions and volunteering, two vital resources to the nonprofit sector. It includes the most recent data available.

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