Research

The U.S. Nonprofit Sector Report 2026 (Form 990)

By The Ledgerism Editorial Team · The Ledgerism Brief Editorial Team produces original, methodology-disclosed accounting and tax research—data trackers, databases, and reference guides built to be the most-cited source in the field. Every figure is verified against primary sources including FASB, the IRS, the PCAOB, NASBA, the AICPA, and state boards of accountancy.

A data profile of the U.S. tax-exempt sector built from IRS primary filings and federal statistics. Every figure below carries its exact year, geography, and source. Federal exempt-organization data lag by one to three years; figures are labeled with the period they measure, not the year of publication.

Executive summary

• The IRS recognized 1,916,367 organizations as tax-exempt under Section 501(c) as of fiscal year 2025, of which 1,596,231 were Section 501(c)(3) religious, charitable, and similar organizations (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6).
• Including nonexempt charitable trusts, split-interest trusts, and Section 527 political organizations, the IRS master file covered 2,068,741 exempt entities in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6).
• Section 501(c)(3) organizations that filed the long-form Form 990 for Tax Year 2022 reported $6.17 trillion in total assets and $3.03 trillion in total revenue, based on IRS Statistics of Income sample estimates (Source: IRS SOI, Form 990 study, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).
• The nonprofit sector accounted for 12.8 million jobs, or 9.9 percent of all U.S. private-sector employment, in 2022 (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nonprofit Sector Research Data, 2022).
• Nonprofit output equaled 5.3 percent of U.S. GDP as of the fourth quarter of 2024, per Federal Reserve and Bureau of Economic Analysis data (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond analysis of BEA data, Q4 2024).
• U.S. charitable giving reached an estimated $592.50 billion in 2024, a record in current dollars (Source: Giving USA 2025, Tier-2).
• The IRS closed 145,202 applications for tax-exempt status in FY 2025, approving 128,642 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-4).
• More than 760,000 organizations had their exempt status automatically revoked for non-filing between mid-2010 and the end of 2017, with about 98,000 (13 percent) later reinstated (Source: NCCS/Nonprofit Quarterly analysis of IRS Data Books and auto-revocation bulk data).

Key findings

1. The IRS master file listed 1,916,367 recognized Section 501(c) organizations in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6).
2. Section 501(c)(3) religious, charitable, and similar organizations numbered 1,596,231 in FY 2025, up from 1,514,558 in FY 2023 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025 and 2023, Table 14/2-6).
3. Section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations numbered 69,617 in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6).
4. Section 501(c)(6) business leagues numbered 57,916 in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6).
5. Long-form Form 990 filers under 501(c)(3) held $6.17 trillion in total assets in Tax Year 2022 (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).
6. Those same filers reported $3.03 trillion in total revenue in Tax Year 2022 (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).
7. Program service revenue was $2.11 trillion, or 69.6 percent of that total revenue, in Tax Year 2022 (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).
8. Contributions, gifts, and grants to those filers totaled $756.12 billion in Tax Year 2022, of which $305.07 billion was government grants (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).
9. Net assets of long-form 990 filers reached $3.97 trillion in Tax Year 2022 (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).
10. The IRS received about 1.80 million tax-exempt organization returns (Form 990 series and related) in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 1-2).
11. Nonprofits accounted for 12.8 million jobs, 9.9 percent of private-sector employment, across more than 300,000 establishments in 2022 (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).
12. Nearly two-thirds of nonprofit jobs (66.3 percent) were in health care and social assistance in 2022 (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).
13. Nonprofit output equaled 5.3 percent of U.S. GDP in Q4 2024, below the pre-pandemic share of roughly 5.5 percent (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond analysis of BEA data, Q4 2024).
14. Total U.S. charitable giving was an estimated $592.50 billion in 2024, up 6.3 percent in current dollars (Source: Giving USA 2025, Tier-2).
15. Individual giving was $392.45 billion, 66 percent of the 2024 total (Source: Giving USA 2025, Tier-2).
16. The IRS approved 128,642 of 145,202 tax-exempt applications closed in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-4).
17. More than 760,000 organizations lost exempt status to automatic revocation between mid-2010 and end-2017 (Source: NCCS/Nonprofit Quarterly analysis of IRS data).

Sector size: how many tax-exempt organizations exist

The IRS Business Master File is the authoritative count of organizations that have applied for and received recognition of exempt status. The IRS Data Book, 2025 (covering federal fiscal year 2025, October 2024 through September 2025) reports the current stock.

The IRS recognized 1,916,367 organizations under Section 501(c) in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6). Adding Section 501(d) religious and apostolic associations (239), Section 527 political organizations (49,048), and 103,087 nonexempt charitable and split-interest trusts brings the full master-file total to 2,068,741 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6).

The 501(c)(3) category, the largest and most visible, held 1,596,231 organizations in FY 2025 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6). That figure grew steadily: 1,514,558 in FY 2023 and roughly 1.48 million in FY 2022 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2023, Table 14; IRS Data Book historical).

Two counting caveats matter. First, the 501(c)(3) figure excludes organizations that are exempt without applying, including most churches and very small organizations with gross receipts of $5,000 or less per year, so the true population of charitable organizations is larger than the master-file count (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6, footnote 2). Second, the master file includes organizations that have not filed recently and may be dormant; it is a registry, not a census of active nonprofits.

Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-6.

Sector finances: revenue and assets from Form 990

The IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) division compiles balance-sheet and income-statement aggregates from a sample of Form 990 returns. The most recent completed study covers Tax Year 2022. SOI includes 100 percent of returns from 501(c)(3) organizations with total assets of $50 million or more, and samples smaller organizations at rates from about 1 percent to less than 100 percent (Source: IRS SOI, Exempt Organizations study, data sources and limitations).

For Tax Year 2022, an estimated 248,791 long-form Form 990 returns of 501(c)(3) organizations reported $6.17 trillion in total assets and $3.03 trillion in total revenue (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1). Total expenses were $2.91 trillion and net assets were $3.97 trillion (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).

Program service revenue, the fees earned for mission activities such as tuition, hospital charges, and admissions, was $2.11 trillion, or 69.6 percent of total revenue (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1). Contributions, gifts, and grants were $756.12 billion; within that, government grants were $305.07 billion, or 40.3 percent of all contribution revenue (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1).

Asset concentration is extreme. The 10,871 organizations with $50 million or more in assets held $5.32 trillion, or 86.2 percent of all long-form 990 filer assets in Tax Year 2022, despite being about 4.4 percent of filers (Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1). See the derived insight below.

Source: IRS SOI, Form 990 study, Tax Year 2022, Table 1. All figures are sample-based estimates in current dollars.

Coverage limitation: this SOI table reflects long-form Form 990 filers only. It excludes Form 990-EZ filers (smaller organizations), Form 990-PF (private foundations), and Form 990-N e-Postcard filers (smallest organizations). Aggregate revenue and assets for the entire 501(c)(3) population, including private foundations, are therefore higher than these figures. Independent Sector, drawing on NCCS data, has estimated total nonprofit revenue near $3.7 trillion including all filer types (Source: Independent Sector / NCCS, 2023 data, Tier-2).

Employment and share of the economy

The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures nonprofit employment by matching its Business Register to IRS 501(c)(3) records. This is the authoritative federal employment series.

Nonprofits accounted for 12.8 million jobs in 2022, equal to 9.9 percent of all private-sector employment, spread across more than 300,000 establishments (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nonprofit Sector Research Data, 2022). That job total exceeded total manufacturing employment (about 12.7 million) in the same year (Source: BLS, 2022).

Nonprofit employment is concentrated by industry. Health care and social assistance held 66.3 percent of nonprofit jobs in 2022; educational services held 16.4 percent; other services 6.3 percent; and arts, entertainment, and recreation 2.6 percent (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).

Employment concentration also varies sharply by geography. In 2022, the District of Columbia had the highest nonprofit share of total employment at 25 percent, followed by Vermont (20 percent) and Massachusetts (18 percent) (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).

On economic output, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports the gross value added of nonprofit institutions serving households. That value equaled 5.3 percent of U.S. GDP as of the fourth quarter of 2024, just below the pre-pandemic share of about 5.5 percent (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Macro Minute, analysis of BEA data, Q4 2024). Independent Sector, using NCCS data, estimated nonprofit economic activity at more than $1.4 trillion, or 5.2 percent of GDP, in 2023 (Source: Independent Sector, Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector, 2024, Tier-2).

Nonprofit wages: Independent Sector reports that nonprofits paid more than $870 billion in wages in 2022, based on BLS data (Source: Independent Sector, Tier-2; underlying data BLS, 2022). This wage aggregate is not published directly in the BLS Economics Daily summary and is flagged as Tier-2.

Charitable giving

Charitable giving is a distinct measure from nonprofit revenue: it captures donations only, not fees, government grants, or investment income. The authoritative annual estimate is Giving USA, produced by the Giving USA Foundation and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. It is a modeled estimate, not a tax-filing count, and is classified here as Tier-2.

Total U.S. charitable giving reached an estimated $592.50 billion in 2024, a record in current dollars and up 6.3 percent from 2023, or 3.3 percent after inflation (Source: Giving USA 2025, Tier-2). Individuals gave $392.45 billion (66 percent of the total); foundations gave $109.81 billion (19 percent); bequests were $45.84 billion; and corporations gave $44.40 billion (Source: Giving USA 2025, Tier-2).

Source: Giving USA 2025 (giving by individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations for calendar year 2024). Tier-2. Shares are rounded and sum to 100 percent.

Form 990 filing volumes and applications

The IRS Data Book tracks both the flow of new applications and the volume of annual returns.

The IRS closed 145,202 applications for tax-exempt status in FY 2025 and approved 128,642 of them, an approval rate of 88.6 percent (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-4). Of those, 137,543 applications came from 501(c)(3) religious and charitable organizations, of which 121,913 were approved (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 2-4).

The IRS received about 1,798,413 tax-exempt organization returns in FY 2025, essentially flat (down 0.4 percent) from 1,805,833 in FY 2024 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 1-2). This count spans the full Form 990 series: Form 990 (long form), 990-EZ, 990-N e-Postcard, 990-PF (private foundations), and 990-T (unrelated business income), plus related forms such as 4720 and 5227 (Source: IRS Data Book, 2025, Table 1-2, footnote 7).

Automatic revocation

An organization required to file a Form 990-series return loses its tax-exempt status automatically if it fails to file for three consecutive years, under a rule created by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and first enforced in 2011 (Source: IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption for Non-Filing).

The IRS publishes the auto-revocation list monthly with name, EIN, organization type, and revocation date, but does not publish a running aggregate count (Source: IRS, Automatic Revocation of Exemption list; flagged data gap). Independent analysis fills that gap. More than 760,000 organizations had their status revoked for non-filing between mid-2010 and the end of 2017 (Source: NCCS / Nonprofit Quarterly analysis of IRS Data Books, Tables 24-25, and IRS auto-revocation bulk data, accessed January 2018).

Reinstatement is possible but incomplete. About 98,000 organizations, or roughly 13 percent of those revoked in 2010-2017, were reinstated during that period, leaving a net loss of about 662,000 organizations (Source: NCCS / Nonprofit Quarterly analysis, 2018). After the initial 2010-2011 backlog was cleared, automatic revocations settled at roughly 44,000 organizations per year (Source: NCCS / Nonprofit Quarterly analysis, 2018).

Original synthesis: three derived insights

1. Nonprofit Asset Concentration Ratio (Tax Year 2022)

Logic: divide total assets held by 501(c)(3) long-form 990 filers with $50 million or more in assets by the total assets of all long-form 990 filers, and separately compute those large filers as a share of the filer count.

Inputs (all from IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1): large-filer assets $5,324.19 billion; total assets $6,174.77 billion; large filers 10,871; total filers 248,791.

Result: the largest 4.37 percent of long-form 990 filers held 86.2 percent of the sector’s reported assets in Tax Year 2022. The bottom 92,350 filers with under $500,000 in assets (37.1 percent of filers) held $18.63 billion combined, or 0.30 percent of assets.

Interpretation: the reporting 501(c)(3) sector is roughly as top-heavy as the U.S. corporate sector. A small tier of hospitals, universities, and large foundations dominates the balance sheet, while the majority of nonprofits operate on very small asset bases.

Limitations: covers long-form 990 filers only, excludes 990-EZ/PF/N; sample-based estimates; asset-size bands are as published by SOI.

2. Program-Service Self-Sufficiency Index (Tax Year 2022)

Logic: program service revenue divided by total revenue, for long-form 990 filers.

Inputs (IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1): program service revenue $2,108.59 billion; total revenue $3,028.04 billion.

Result: 69.6 percent. Nearly 70 cents of every revenue dollar reported on the long-form Form 990 came from earned program fees, not donations.

Interpretation: the popular image of nonprofits as donation-funded is inaccurate for the reporting 501(c)(3) sector. Contributions, gifts, and grants supplied only 25.0 percent of revenue ($756.12 billion / $3,028.04 billion), and government grants alone supplied 10.1 percent. Fee-for-service revenue, dominated by health care and higher education, is the sector’s financial engine.

Limitations: skewed by large hospital and university systems in the long-form sample; smaller, more donation-dependent organizations filing 990-EZ or 990-N are excluded, so the donation share for the full sector is higher.

3. Gross Revocation Rate vs. Growth (2010-2017 vs. current stock)

Logic: compare cumulative automatic revocations (2010-2017) to the current recognized 501(c)(3) stock to size the churn the enforcement rule imposed on the registry.

Inputs: cumulative revocations 760,000+ (NCCS/NPQ, 2010-2017); reinstatements about 98,000 (NCCS/NPQ); current recognized 501(c)(3) count 1,596,231 (IRS Data Book, 2025).

Result: the net organizations removed (about 662,000) equal roughly 41 percent of the current recognized 501(c)(3) stock. Put differently, for every three 501(c)(3)s recognized today, the auto-revocation rule removed the equivalent of more than one from the pre-2011 registry.

Interpretation: the 2011 enforcement wave was the single largest one-time cleanup of the exempt-organization registry in its history. It explains why master-file counts before and after 2011 are not directly comparable and why time-series analyses of “number of nonprofits” must treat 2010-2012 as a structural break.

Limitations: revocation totals are from a third-party analysis of IRS bulk data through 2017, not an official IRS aggregate; some revoked organizations were already defunct; the ratio compares a flow (2010-2017) to a stock (2025) and is illustrative, not a rate.

Charts to create

1. Title: “501(c)(3) organizations, FY 2020 to FY 2025.” Data: annual master-file counts. Source: IRS Data Book, Table 14/2-6. Insight: steady ~2 percent annual growth after the 2011 revocation break. Citation-worthy because it is the clean official growth series.
2. Title: “Where nonprofit money comes from, Tax Year 2022.” Data: program service revenue, contributions, government grants, other, as shares of total revenue. Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1. Insight: earned revenue dominates. Corrects a common misconception.
3. Title: “Nonprofit asset concentration, Tax Year 2022.” Data: assets and filer counts by asset-size band. Source: IRS SOI, Tax Year 2022, Table 1. Insight: 4.4 percent of filers hold 86 percent of assets.
4. Title: “Nonprofit share of U.S. private employment vs. GDP.” Data: 9.9 percent of jobs (2022) vs. 5.3 percent of GDP (Q4 2024). Source: BLS 2022; BEA/Richmond Fed Q4 2024. Insight: nonprofits are labor-intensive, larger in jobs than in output.
5. Title: “U.S. charitable giving by source, 2024.” Data: individuals, foundations, bequests, corporations. Source: Giving USA 2025 (Tier-2). Insight: two-thirds of giving is still individual.

Methodology

Source selection prioritized Tier-1 primary data: the IRS Data Book (organization counts and applications), IRS Statistics of Income Form 990 studies (revenue and assets), the Bureau of Labor Statistics Nonprofit Sector Research Data (employment), and BEA data on nonprofit gross value added (GDP share, accessed via Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond analysis because the BLS and Fed pages returned access errors to the automated fetch). NCCS at the Urban Institute and its published analyses were used for the auto-revocation totals that the IRS does not aggregate publicly. Giving USA and Independent Sector were used only where labeled Tier-2, for figures no primary federal source publishes (modeled giving totals; a combined wage aggregate).

Inclusion rule: a statistic appears only if it traces to a named source with an exact period. Exclusion rule: figures that could not be tied to a primary or clearly-sourced secondary release were dropped, including several round “1.8 million nonprofits / $3.7 trillion revenue” claims that circulate without a consistent underlying year; where used, they are labeled as NCCS/Independent Sector estimates.

Conflict handling: the master-file 501(c)(3) count (1.6 million, all subtypes, registry) and the SOI long-form 990 filer count (248,791, financial filers only) differ because they measure different things; both are reported with their scope stated. Where the FY 2024 and FY 2025 Data Books differed, the FY 2025 edition (most recent) is used as the headline figure. Derived figures were computed only from Tier-1 SOI and Data Book inputs; the arithmetic is shown in the synthesis section.

Data limitations: SOI aggregates are sample-based estimates covering long-form Form 990 filers only; federal counts lag one to three years; the auto-revocation total is a third-party analysis through 2017. Date of last update: 2026-06-29.

Source quality ranking

Tier 1 (primary, government, academic data):
– IRS Data Book, 2025 (Tables 2-6, 2-4, 1-2) and IRS Data Book, 2023 (Table 14) — organization counts, applications, return volumes.
– IRS Statistics of Income, Form 990 study, Tax Year 2022, Table 1 — revenue and assets.
– U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nonprofit Sector Research Data, 2022 — employment, establishments, industry mix.
– U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (nonprofit gross value added), Q4 2024, as reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond — GDP share.
– National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute) — revocation and sector analysis.

Tier 2 (credible research / modeled estimates):
– Giving USA 2025 (Giving USA Foundation and Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy) — charitable giving totals.
– Independent Sector, Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector (2024) — combined wage total, GDP estimate.
– Nonprofit Quarterly analysis of IRS data — auto-revocation counts (built on Tier-1 IRS bulk data).

Tier 3 (used for navigation only, not as a source of record): MinistryWatch Data Book brief.

Excluded: aggregator sites (Statista, Zippia, Donorbox, Financesonline) presenting undated or unsourced round numbers; any figure lacking a traceable period.

Citation format

• Source: Internal Revenue Service, Data Book 2025, Table 2-6, Tax-Exempt Organizations, FY 2025.
• Source: IRS Statistics of Income, Form 990 Returns of 501(c)(3) Organizations, Table 1, Tax Year 2022.
• Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nonprofit Sector Research Data, 2022.
• Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, nonprofit gross value added, Q4 2024 (via Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond).
• Source: Giving USA 2025, Giving USA Foundation / Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (calendar year 2024).

Journalist-friendly additions

Most quotable statistics

• 1,596,231 Section 501(c)(3) organizations were recognized by the IRS in FY 2025 (IRS Data Book, 2025).
• Nonprofits provided 12.8 million jobs, 9.9 percent of U.S. private-sector employment, in 2022 (BLS).
• 501(c)(3) long-form 990 filers reported $6.17 trillion in assets and $3.03 trillion in revenue in Tax Year 2022 (IRS SOI).
• U.S. charitable giving hit a record $592.50 billion in 2024 (Giving USA 2025).
• 4.4 percent of large 990 filers held 86 percent of sector assets in Tax Year 2022 (derived from IRS SOI).

Data limitations

Federal exempt-organization data lag one to three years. SOI Form 990 figures are sample estimates covering long-form filers only and exclude private foundations (990-PF) and the smallest organizations (990-EZ, 990-N). Master-file counts include potentially dormant registrants. The IRS does not publish a running auto-revocation total. Giving USA and the nonprofit wage aggregate are modeled or third-party figures, labeled Tier-2.

Downloadable dataset — recommended fields

metric_name, value, unit, entity_type (e.g. 501c3, all_501c, long_form_990_filers), tax_or_fiscal_year, geography, source_organization, source_document, source_table, source_url, tier, methodology_note, is_derived, derivation_formula, retrieved_date

Press summary (about 150 words)

The U.S. tax-exempt sector remains one of the largest components of the economy. The IRS recognized 1,916,367 organizations under Section 501(c) in fiscal year 2025, including 1,596,231 charitable 501(c)(3) organizations, according to the IRS Data Book, 2025. Financially, 501(c)(3) organizations that filed the long-form Form 990 for Tax Year 2022 reported $6.17 trillion in assets and $3.03 trillion in revenue, per IRS Statistics of Income data, with nearly 70 percent of that revenue coming from earned program fees rather than donations. Nonprofits employed 12.8 million people, 9.9 percent of private-sector workers, in 2022, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and produced output equal to 5.3 percent of GDP as of late 2024. Charitable giving reached a record $592.50 billion in 2024, Giving USA reports. Asset ownership is highly concentrated: the largest 4.4 percent of filers held 86 percent of reported assets.

Suggested headlines

1. Nonprofits Hold $6 Trillion in Assets. Just 4 Percent of Them Own 86 Percent of It.
2. The IRS Recognizes 1.6 Million Charities. Here Is What Their Form 990s Actually Show.
3. Nonprofits Employ 1 in 10 U.S. Private Workers but Produce Only 5 Percent of GDP.
4. Most Nonprofit Money Is Not Donations: 70 Percent Comes From Program Fees.
5. Charitable Giving Hit a Record $592 Billion in 2024. The Data Behind It.

FAQs

1. How many nonprofits are in the U.S.? The IRS recognized 1,916,367 organizations under Section 501(c) in FY 2025, plus trusts and political organizations for a master-file total of 2,068,741 (IRS Data Book, 2025).
2. How many are 501(c)(3) charities? 1,596,231 in FY 2025 (IRS Data Book, 2025), excluding non-applying churches and very small organizations.
3. What is the total revenue of the nonprofit sector? Long-form 990 filers (501(c)(3)) reported $3.03 trillion in Tax Year 2022 (IRS SOI); full-sector estimates including all filer types run near $3.7 trillion (NCCS/Independent Sector).
4. What are total nonprofit assets? $6.17 trillion for long-form 990 filers in Tax Year 2022 (IRS SOI).
5. How much of GDP is the nonprofit sector? 5.3 percent as of Q4 2024 (BEA via Richmond Fed).
6. How many people do nonprofits employ? 12.8 million, 9.9 percent of private-sector jobs, in 2022 (BLS).
7. How much did Americans donate to charity? A record $592.50 billion in 2024 (Giving USA 2025).
8. How many Form 990 returns are filed each year? About 1.8 million tax-exempt returns in FY 2025 (IRS Data Book, 2025).
9. How many organizations lose exempt status? More than 760,000 were auto-revoked for non-filing between 2010 and 2017; about 44,000 per year since (NCCS/NPQ analysis).
10. What share of nonprofit revenue is donations? For long-form 990 filers, contributions were 25 percent and government grants 10 percent of revenue in Tax Year 2022; program fees were 70 percent (IRS SOI).

Sources

1. Internal Revenue Service, Data Book, 2025 (Publication 55B), Tables 1-2, 2-4, and 2-6. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p55b.pdf
2. Internal Revenue Service, Data Book, 2023 (Publication 55B), Tables 12 and 14. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p55b–2024.pdf
3. Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, Form 990 Returns of 501(c)(3) Organizations, Balance Sheet and Income Statement Items, Tax Year 2022, Table 1. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/22eo01.xlsx
4. Internal Revenue Service, SOI Tax Stats, Charities and Other Tax-Exempt Organizations Statistics. https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-charities-and-other-tax-exempt-organizations-statistics
5. Internal Revenue Service, SOI Exempt Organizations study data sources and limitations. https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-exempt-organizations-study-data-sources-and-limitations
6. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nonprofit Sector Research Data. https://www.bls.gov/bdm/nonprofits/nonprofits.htm
7. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Nonprofits accounted for 12.8 million jobs, 9.9 percent of private-sector employment, in 2022,” The Economics Daily. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/nonprofits-accounted-for-12-8-million-jobs-9-9-percent-of-private-sector-employment-in-2022.htm
8. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, “How Big Is the Nonprofit Sector?” Macro Minute (2025), analysis of BEA data. https://www.richmondfed.org/research/national_economy/macro_minute/2025/how_big_is_the_nonprofit_sector
9. Internal Revenue Service, Automatic Revocation of Exemption list. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/automatic-revocation-of-exemption
10. National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute), Nonprofit Sector in Brief Dashboard and Revocations Database. https://nccs.urban.org/nccs/resources/sector-in-brief-dashboard/
11. Nonprofit Quarterly, “How Many Nonprofits Are There? What the IRS’s Nonprofit Automatic Revocation and 1023-EZ Processes Left Behind,” analysis of IRS Data Books and auto-revocation bulk data. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-many-nonprofits-1023ez/
12. Giving USA 2025 (Giving USA Foundation and Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy). https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2025-u-s-charitable-giving-grew-to-592-50-billion-in-2024-lifted-by-stock-market-gains/
13. Independent Sector, Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector (2024). https://independentsector.org/resource/health-of-the-u-s-nonprofit-sector/

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