Who’s the fairest of them all?

Ever wonder how your organization is doing compared to other nonprofits in your community? Or how are you doing compared to other groups in your sector?

Until now, you could get the answer by calling around town, checking with colleagues. Or, if interested in national trends in your sector you could go to The Atlas of Giving or the Blackbaud Index of Charitable Giving.

But now, if you’re thinking about that year-end report you’ll have to prepare for your CEO and Board, here’s a new tool that may be a big help.

The Urban Institute, one of the great research organizations in the U.S. and home of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and the National Center for Charitable Statistics, has just published a remarkable study titled The People’s Sector: A Look at Nonprofit Gains and Losses.

When I label this study “remarkable” I mean it. The researchers at The Urban Institute have taken 10 years of data (1994-2014) from the IRS and from their own National Center for Charitable statistics and analyzed the financial gains and losses year over year of 300,000 public charities in the U.S. (Religious groups and other organizations not required to file a Form 990 with the U.S. are excluded.)

Then, using codes of the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities and city area locations from the U.S. Census Bureau they’ve created a readily accessible and easy to use interactive data base that enables any nonprofit to take a closer look at the nonprofit activity in their own communities or by sector across the nation. (The one drawback is that the data only goes through 2014 — the delay resulting from when Form 990 data are available.)

Want to know which organizations in your community grew — or declined — more than 10% last year? Go to the People’s Sector online database.

Take a tour. Play with the interactive database. You’ll see why being able to look at nonprofits and slice the data in a local context — not just national trends — is so important.

For example, you’ll find that Portland, Oregon saw the largest growth among arts organizations of any other metro area over the past 5 years. Or that immigrant organizations are growing as strongly in Minneapolis they are in much larger metropolitan areas like New York. And that efforts to revitalize philanthropy in Miami seem to be working.

If you’re into national trends, here are some insights provided by Shena Ashley, Director of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute.

• Universities and hospitals tend to be the largest and most highly resourced nonprofits by far. They drive the sector’s overall growth numbers in terms of revenue and employment.

• Overall the nonprofit sector continues to grow. An estimated 14.4 million people or 1 in 10 employees in the U.S. work for a nonprofit.

• The nonprofit sector makes up 5.4 percent of the US gross domestic product (GDP).

Take a look and play with this database to see how your organization is doing compared to others.

Then thank the good folks at The Urban Institute for providing a tool and the data that will make you look like a rock star when you deliver the year-end report to the CEO and Board.

Roger