Virginia’s Nonprofit Sector: An Economic Force, Key Findings from VANNO

from Deborah Barfield Williamson, Executive Director of Virginia Network of Nonprofit Organizations (VANNO)

Nonprofits permeate our lives:

• We're born in nonprofit hospitals, attend nonprofit day care centers and pre-schools, are educated in nonprofit elementary and secondary schools, attend nonprofit universities, participate in nonprofit recreational programs.
• Nonprofits respond to the citizens’ emergencies, entertain them at parks, historical sites, and theaters. Citizens find peace in nonprofit houses of worship. Virginians look to these organizations to fill basic human needs—food, shelter, clothing, and safety.
• Aging citizens rely on nonprofits for medical and hospice care and home repair. For many Virginians, nonprofit hospices meet end of life needs.
• And many civic organizations and fraternal organizations provide opportunities to build social binds and give back to the community.

In 2008, the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Economic Data Project, The ConnectNetwork and The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia released a groundbreaking study on the economic impact of the Commonwealth’s nonprofit sector.

The study, Virginia’s Nonprofit Sector: An Economic Force, found that while the state’s nonprofit organizations are filling critical community needs with limited resources, they are one of the leading growing employment sectors and significantly contribute to the state’s overall economy.

A few of the key findings:

• Nonprofits, statewide, employ 211,000 people and engage more than 139,000 as volunteers. This represents 6% of Virginia’s workforce and is second only to retail and larger than both the educational services and manufacturing workforces.
• Eighty-two percent of Virginia’s nonprofit organizations operate with budgets of less than $1 million annually.
• Virginia’s nonprofit sector has seen a 35% growth in employment in the last decade, compared to only 20% in the for-profit sector and 12% in the government sector.
• The nonprofit community produces $8.2 billion in taxable wages and generates $461 million income, sales and use taxes.
• Seventy percent of nonprofit organizations and nearly 75% of employees reside in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads or Central Virginia. However, nonprofits account for above-average shares of employment in the Shenandoah Valley, West Central and Eastern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

Read more about Nonprofit Organizations and the full report at www.VANNO.org