from staff
While the nonprofit sector in Northeast Florida has grown at a healthy pace in the past decade, the sector is stretched thin and financially distressed, reports the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida.
The findings come from the latest edition of the “State of the Sector,” a periodic status report on the region’s nonprofit sector underwritten by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund for the Nonprofit Center.
The report, published this month, covers 1998-2008 and reports that the number of active nonprofits in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties has doubled in the last decade, with all of that growth occurring before 2006.
The report said some of that growth could be attributed to more nonprofits filing their IRS 990 forms. The study counts the number of nonprofits filing those forms and said more organizations might become more attentive to filing since 1998. Since 2003, nonprofits have been able to file electronically as well.
However, it also found that in fiscal 2008, 42 percent of nonprofits in Northeast Florida operated in the red.
“As the economy has weathered two recessions in this decade, nonprofits on the First Coast have seen their bottom lines get bloody,” said the report.
That 42 percent is higher than the typical 33 percent that operate in the red each year during better economic times.
“Even in the late 1990s, a halcyon time by today’s standards, one out of three First Coast nonprofits were operating in the red,” said the report.
Despite the growth in numbers, from 495 to 998, only about one-fifth of those nonprofits have annual budgets of $1 million or more.
“While growth in the sheer number of nonprofits suggests a robust sector, closer examination reveals a sector with many units, but relatively few with the capacity to have broad reach and weather economic turmoil,” the report said.
In 2008, average revenues for core nonprofits in Northeast Florida rose 71 percent to $1.84 million; expenses went up 73 percent to $1.79 million; and assets increased 63 percent to $1.2 million. In 1998, revenues were $1.07 million, expenses were $1.03 million and assets were $738,000.
“This body of research helps us see the changes in this important sector over time,” said Sherry P. Magill, president of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. “Understanding the health of the nonprofit sector puts us in a better position to support and nurture it, strengthening a resource that is critical for healthy community life.”
The report found that health and human services organizations make up one-third of the sector. Other fast-growing fields include arts and culture, the environment and animal protection, sports and religion.
The Jessie Ball duPont Fund makes grants to more than 330 eligible organizations identified by duPont in her will. The fund has assets of more than $265 million and has awarded $291 million in grants since 1977.
The Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida works with nonprofits to offer leadership training and to promote the work and efforts of the area’s nonprofits.