Washington's Nonprofits by the Numbers

Some highlights from federal sources:

• In the year ending in November 2003, the Internal Revenue Service counted 20,980 tax-exempt organizations recognized as “charities”  under section 501(c)(3) with addresses in Washington state.

• Of these, 8,663 (41%) were large enough to be required to file a Form 990 (annual information return).

  • The gross receipts reported by these “filers” totaled $32,674,384,730

  • Total reported assets were $51,734,920,826.

  • 3,622 (42%) of the filing organizations had addresses in King County.

  • 2,346 (24%) of the filers were located in Clark, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane Counties.

• The largest filing organizations were in three groups:

  • Education: 1,494 (17%) of the filing organizations with $2.7 billion in revenues and $5.6 billion in assets.

  • Health: 401 (5%) of the filers with $12.5 billion in revenues and $12.1 billion in assets.

  • Philanthropy: 909 (10%) of the filers with $4.4 billion in revenues and $22.3 billion in assets.

• The remaining 5,859 filers (68%) divided 13.1 billion in revenue and $11.7 billion in assets.

• Most revenue reported on 990s filed in the year 2001 was from fees.

  • Program service revenue: $12.1 billion.

  • Contributions, gifts and grants received by public charities: $4.2 billion (does not include donations to private foundations and trusts).

  • Sales (net) and “other”: $694 million.

  • Investment earnings: $347 million.

  • Special event income (net): $94 million.

• In addition to grant-making programs of foundations, corporations and the government, there are program-related supporting organizations that serve the nonprofit sector in a variety of ways. Many are located in Seattle; in addition there are active centers in Clark, Pierce and Spokane Counties as well as in the Tri-Cities.

  • A list of resource organizations for nonprofits is online at http://www.tess.org/pages/support2.html.

  • A list of some of the government agencies whose work impacts nonprofits is at http://www. tess.org/misc/gov2.html.

  • The Internet Nonprofit Center at http://www.nonprofits.org discusses a broad range of issues and links to many national resources.

Statistics from the Secretary of State's Corporations Division:

• On November 21, 2003, the Secretary of State’s office tallied 46,408 registered nonprofit corporations. A year earlier (on December 6, 2002), 45,228 were on the rolls. The list of nonprofit corporations includes many organizations that do not provide financial or other information to the federal government.

Indications of Washingtonians involvement:

• If the average nonprofit corporation has 8 board members, then more than 370,000 Washingtonians have leadership roles. Of the 2.6 million federal tax returns filed in 1997 from Washington, 698 thousand itemized charitable contributions totaling $1.8 billion (about 1.8% of adjusted gross income for all returns).

Nonprofits in Washington: 2004

Later this year, The Evergreen State Society will publish a more complete report on the scope and character of Washington's nonprofits, updating previous editions from 1994 and 1999.

With support from Clark Nuber, CPAs and Consultants, the 2004 edition of Nonprofits in Washington will be available on the World-Wide Web as well as in a printed summary.

This project is also supported by: ArtsFund, Association of Fundraising Professionals (Washington Chapter), Brunni Colbath, Inc., Community Foundation of North Central Washington, Davis Wright Tremaine, Gottlieb Fisher and Andrews, Greater Everett Community Foundation, Henry M. Jackson Foundation, The Seattle Foundation, Social Venture Partners, United Way of King County, and Marion Woyvodich.

Lee Harper and Donna Horn are assisting in the preparation of this report.