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Q: Jewish nonprofits ( Answered 4 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Jewish nonprofits
Category: Reference, Education and News > Teaching and Research
Asked by: aharon-ga
List Price: $10.00
Posted: 30 Jul 2002 16:47 PDT
Expires: 29 Aug 2002 16:47 PDT
Question ID: 47096
How many Jewish nonprofit organizations are there in the United States?
Answer  
Subject: Re: Jewish nonprofits
Answered By: bobbie7-ga on 30 Jul 2002 23:45 PDT
Rated:4 out of 5 stars
 
Hello Aharon, (which means last in Hebrew if I’m not mistaken)


There are 6101 Jewish nonprofit organizations in the U.S.

After an extensive search for the information you requested, I chose
the GuideStar's Website, which has the nation's largest and most
comprehensive source of data on U.S. nonprofit organizations. It
includes a searchable database of more than 640,000 nonprofit
organizations in the United States.
GuideStar's Website
http://www.guidestar.org/index.jsp 

To obtain the above result I filled in the form at their searchable
database: http://www.guidestar.org/search/

Nonprofit name – leave in blank
Keywords - Jewish
City – leave in blank
State – Any state
Zip – leave in blank
Category – All
Nonprofit Type – All
Income Range - $0 to Unlimited
EIN – leave in blank
NTEE Code – leave in blank

Note: If you refine your search criteria, you can obtain not only the
number of organizations found, but the name of each one. In addition
by clicking on their name, you can see financial information, such as
income and assets, contact information and activities.

GuideStar is the registered trademark and operating name of
Philanthropic Research, Inc.,
 
Search terms used:
Jewish nonprofit organizations
Jewish nonprofits U.S.
Nonprofit organizations database


Thanks for the question, and if you need any clarification before
rating my answer just ask and I’ll be pleased to help.

Best regards,

Bobbie7-ga

Request for Answer Clarification by aharon-ga on 31 Jul 2002 08:42 PDT
Thanks for the info.  I do know about GuideStar, unfortunately their
database does not give me an exact number of Jewish organizations in
the US, only the number they have listed in their database...which
means only the organizations who have signed up with Guidestar.  With
the number of nonprofits in the US in the several million mark (can't
remember the exact number, I think it is 12 million), I expect the
number of Jewish organizations to be significantly higher than the
number listed on Guidestar.  I'm looking for a more specific number. 
Additionally, for the translation of my name you are probably thinking
of the hebrew word "acharon" or the shoresh "achar", which means last
and after respectively, Aharon and Acharon have two completely
different "shoreshim".  Note Aharon has a "heh" or H and Achron has a
"chet" or CH.  Aharon is largely determined to be not translatable,
and may not be Hebrew at all.  Much like Moses or Moshe, which is
ancient egyptian for "to draw out".  Hey I guess that yeshiva
education paid off.  Thanks for the input but I need a precise number.

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 31 Jul 2002 09:00 PDT
Hi Aharon,
I will continue my research for a more specific number immediately and
will get back to you as soon as I have more info,and thanks for the
explanation on the meaning for Aharon.

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 31 Jul 2002 13:00 PDT
Hello Aharon,

The number of Jewish nonprofit organizations I gave you was based on
groups that are recognized by the IRS as nonprofits. It is true; this
data does not fully reflect the enormous scope of the sector.” Small
organizations with gross receipts under $5,000 and most religious
organizations are not required to apply to the IRS for tax-exempt
status, and organizations with gross receipts of less than $25,000 do
not have to file yearly information returns.”
Urban Institute Website
http://www.urban.org/news/factsheets/nonprofitsFS.html

According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), 
there were 1,539,000 nonprofit organizations in the United States in
1998. I couldn’t find any sources for the12 million U.S. nonprofits
cited in your clarification request. There are no official figures for
the smaller nonprofits. The National Center for Charitable Statistics
(NCCS) is the national repository of data on the nonprofit sector in
the United States.
http://nccs.urban.org/n_entities2.pdf

I am sorry that my answer did not satisfy your needs, and after many
hours of further research, I came to the conclusion that the only
figure of Jewish nonprofit organizations is the one I gave you in my
answer. Nevertheless, in order to obtain the number you request, which
would only be an estimate, I sent an e-mail inquiring about the number
of U.S. Jewish nonprofit organizations in the U.S. to the following,
and will continue to request this information from other sources.

Mr. Mark Berger
http://www.mibaa.com/aboutus.htm

Mr. Mark E. Benson 
http://www.ehlconsulting.com/default.html?main.html

American Association of Fundraising Counsel
http://www.aafrc.org/


I hope to receive a reply from them soon, and at that time I will get
back to you.

Best regards,
Bobbie7-ga

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 31 Jul 2002 15:25 PDT
Hi Aharon,
Here is the copy of an answer I just recieved from John Ward from the
American Association of Fundraising Counsel:
"Thank you for your interest in the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy and
Giving
USA.  Please note the following response from the editor of Giving
USA:
1) many Jewish organizations don't use the word Jewish in their name
2) no government agency asks about religious affiliation -- it's
unconstitutional
3) other agencies that count houses of worship don't count one of the
biggest places for Jewish giving, the federations and such.
Thank you.
Joan Ward
AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy / Giving USA"

Clarification of Answer by bobbie7-ga on 31 Jul 2002 17:29 PDT
Hi again,

Mr. Mark Berger just sent me the following e-mail:

"I doubt anyone knows an authoritative answer to your question. I
checked one useful source, www.guidestar.org, which maintains a
database of nonprofits that file an informational return with the IRS.
Their database is over 850,000 organizations. I did a search for
"Jewish" and got 6401 hits. "Hebrew" came up with about 500.
Synagogues, as religious organizations aren't required to register
with the IRS, though some do. There are about 3,000 synagogues. So
maybe 10,000 Jewish organizations.  To that you could add local
chapters of national bodies like Hadassah, ORT, etc. taht are part of
a national organization.
That's my best guess. "
aharon-ga rated this answer:4 out of 5 stars
Thanks Bobbie for your diligence in this matter, regardless you were
EXTREMELY helpful, I'm a little shocked at the the low numbers but
like you said "there are no official figures for smaller nonprofits". 
Anyway, thanks again, for your help!

Comments  
Subject: Re: Jewish nonprofits
From: morris-ga on 31 Jul 2002 14:14 PDT
 
Aharon,

I made the obvious check on the meaning of these numbers by following
bobbie7-ga's instructions and searching on Christian instead of
Jewish. The number of Christian non-profits reported was 50217, or
8.23 Christian non-profits for each Jewish non-profit. Since
Christians outnumber Jews in the US by around 50:1, I'd have to say
the search methodology using http://www.guidestar.org/index.jsp just
isn't producing meaningful numbers. I suspect that the reason for
these low numbers and the crazy ratio is not because the size of the
non-profits, but because of the "key words" approach and the special
status the IRS gives religious organizations. For example, the 50,217
quoted for Christian non-profits doesn't even come close to the number
of churches I've seen in my life!

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