Philadelphia Nonprofits Have the Numbers, But Are They Healthy?

Here in the Philadelphia region, where I live, six of the area’s top 10 employers are nonprofits, and a staggering 27 percent of city employees work for nonprofits.

Great news for the sector, right?

Well, that depends on how well the sector’s doing here.

As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday, the Philadelphia Foundation “is commissioning a study to benchmark the state of nonprofits in Philadelphia and its four neighboring Pennsylvania counties.”

It has tapped the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia to catalog and group the members of our nonprofit world, examine their finances and funding sources, and compare them with their peers. The foundation will spend $100,000 on the first phase of the study.

An Economy League official pointed out that determining the health of the sector will help the government determine whether nonprofits will be able to pick up the slack in the wake of slashed budgets, and that donors will be able to get a big-picture look at the sector. It’s an ambitious undertaking, to be sure, but, I think, a necessary one. I wouldn’t be surprised to see other metropolitan areas take up similar projects as accountability and efficiency continue to be watched. | 501(c)