Research Results:
Indiana Nonprofit Survey

THE INDIANA NONPROFIT SECTOR: A PROFILE

Survey Report #2

Indiana University
School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Center on Philanthropy

Click here to read the press release for this study. Click here to access the full report Note: this is a large file (801 KB). You may wish to access separate sections of the report independently through links in the major sections below. (You will need a free copy of the Acrobat program to read any of these documents.)

For information about the survey on which this report is based, please see Indiana Nonprofit Survey. For separate tables with data for selected Indiana regions, please see Regional Tables at the bottom of this page.

Top | Introduction | Key Findings | Regional Tables | Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

Nonprofits--whether charities, congregations, or advocacy or mutual benefit organizations--are integral to the service and civic infrastructure of Indiana. They enrich personal development, provide an enormous range of important services, and play a critical role in strengthening civic engagement. Click here to access the full preface to the report.

At the same time, nonprofits are also a major force in the state's economy. IRS-registered nonprofits alone (excluding most churches) employed 222,000 paid workers in Indiana in 2001, or 8 percent of the state's paid workforce, and reported $6 billion in payrolls. Indeed, as key community actors, nonprofits are called upon to address critical community needs across the state.

However, Indiana--like most states--faces major economic and fiscal challenges that have serious implications for the state's nonprofit sector. As a result, many nonprofits face growing demands for their services and major shifts in resources. Their ability to address these and other challenges depends critically on how well prepared they are, on the tools available to them, and on the extent to which they may already be stretched too thin.

To help the Indiana nonprofit sector develop effective strategies to address these challenges so that it may continue to play a key role in communities across the state, nonprofit leaders and other policy makers must have solid information about the state of Indiana nonprofits and the environment in which they operate--information not currently available. We seek to address this gap by providing new information on the composition and basic characteristics of the Indiana nonprofit sector, broadly defined. No other study has examined all types of nonprofits or done so in such detail. We therefore hope this report will be of use to a broad range of decision-makers.

This report is based on a 2002 survey of 2,205 Indiana charities, congregations, advocacy nonprofits and mutual benefit associations, representing a response rate of 29 percent. Details of how the sample was developed and the data collected are described in technical reports available upon request.

Top | Introduction | Key Findings | Regional Tables | Acknowledgements

KEY FINDINGS

1. Indiana nonprofits: diverse, but fiscally challenged. Click here to access the preface and Chapter 1 of the report which details these findings.

• Indiana nonprofits pursue a broad array of missions, but half focus on just two fields: human services and religious-spiritual development.
• Many target their services to particular groups, especially based on age and geographic regions.
• Many face increasing demands for services, are fairly young (half are founded since 1970), small, and with financial challenges; one third depends on donations and gifts and a quarter on dues, fees, or sales for most of their funding.

2. Major nonprofit fields: distinctive profiles. Click here to access Chapter 2 of the report, which details these findings.

• Human services nonprofits tend to target by age or geographic region, have faced growing demands for services, are quite young, and tend to rely heavily on dues, fees, and sales.
• Religious nonprofits are likely to target by faith or age, are old, modest in size with modest financial challenges, and rely heavily on donations and gifts.
• Public and societal benefit nonprofits target by age and geographic region, saw limited increase in demand for services, include both young and old organizations, are small and financially stable, and rely on a mix of funding sources.
• Education nonprofits tend to target by age, geographic region, and gender, are relatively young, include a mixture of small and large organizations, are relatively financially stable, and rely mostly on dues, fees, and sales of goods.
• Mutual benefit nonprofits tend to do limited targeting, experienced little change in demand for services, are older, are smaller, and rely heavily on dues, fees, and sales.
• Health nonprofits are especially likely to target by age and geographic region as well as gender and income, have seen significant increases in demand for services, tend to be younger, are larger, face notable financial challenges, and depend disproportionately on government funding.
• Arts, culture, and humanities nonprofits conduct limited targeting, are young and small, and rely on dues, fees, and sales or special events.
• Environment and animal protection nonprofits conduct limited targeting, are relatively young and small, and rely on a mix of funding sources.

3. Service capacity: extensive and accessible, but also presenting challenges.Click here to access Chapter 3 of the report, which details these findings.

• Indiana nonprofits deliver a wide range of services, but 48 percent include some form of human services among their three most important programs. Relatively few have plans or interests in expanding health or human services.
• In terms of service accessibility, the vast majority (81 percent) provides their services through a single location; 55 percent provide all services at no cost to clients or members and 91 percent provide at least some services at no cost.
• There is limited service capacity: most serve relatively few clients, and while 63 percent track clients, only 41 percent have electronic record systems. The majority finds it a challenge to communicate with members/clients (61 percent), deliver high quality services (69 percent), or evaluate programs or programs (62 percent)--30 percent have done so in the last three years.

4. Human resources: To deliver their services, Indiana nonprofits rely on staff, but especially volunteers. Click here to access Chapter 4 of the report, which details these findings.

• Only 52 percent have paid staff and of these 41 percent have two or less full-time equivalent staff; almost half (45 percent) find it a challenge to recruit and retain qualified staff; and on average, staff compensation absorbs half of all ex-penses.
• Most (73 percent) rely on volunteers, and of these 74 percent say volunteers are very important or essential. However, very few have formal volunteer recruitment (18 percent) or training programs (21 percent), even though most (65 percent) consider it a challenge to recruit or retain qualified and reliable volunteers.
• Most have their own board of directors (85 percent), use some board committee structure (72 percent), but consider it a challenge to recruit and retain effective board members (56 percent).

5. Regional dimensions: Analysis of seven metropolitan regions (Indianapolis, Gary/Northwest, Fort Wayne, Evansville, South Bend, Bloomington, and Muncie) and five non-metropolitan counties (Bartholomew, Cass, Dubois, Miami, and Scott) show differences in the composition and characteristics of the nonprofit sector on some dimensions, but not others. Click here to access Chapter 5 of the report, which highlights these findings.

Tables reporting on these regional patterns are available here (you will need a free copy of the Acrobat program to read these documents).

• Appendices B and C
  Appendix B: Distribution of Indiana Nonprofits by Field for Selected Regions
  Appendix C: Dimensions of Indiana Nonprofit Fields for Selected Regions
• Appendix D: Dimensions of Nonprofit Service Capacity for Selected Indiana Regions
• Appendix E. Dimensions of Nonprofit Human Resources for Selected Indiana Regions.

6. Conclusion. Click here to read Conclusion to the report. Click here to access the full set of appendices.

Top | Introduction | Key Findings | Regional Tables | Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We express our deep-felt gratitude to the many Indiana nonprofits that completed our survey. Without their cooperation, we would have nothing to report. This report was prepared as part of an ongoing project on the Indiana Nonprofit Sector: Scope and Community Dimensions made possible by a grant from the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund and by support for the Efroymson Chair in Philanthropy by the Indianapolis Foundation at the Central Indiana Community Foundation and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy's Indiana Research Fund, supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc. Additional funding and in-kind support has been provided by Indiana University Foundation; the Chancellor's Office at Indiana University Bloomington; The Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at I.U.P.U.I.; WBH Evansville, Inc.; the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University on the Bloomington, Indianapolis, South Bend, Northwest, and Fort Wayne campuses; Ball State University; and the University of Southern Indiana.

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