News Release

Maryland's nonprofit sector employs more people than all of the state's manufacturing industries and accounted for 25 percent of all job growth in the state over the past decade, leading all other sectors, according to a new study released today.

The study was conducted by Lester Salamon (pictured at right), a principal research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies and a leading expert on nonprofits, in conjunction with the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

"The nonprofit sector in Maryland not only contributes to the quality of life through the health care, education, job training, day care, culture and advocacy it provides, but it's a major economic force as well," said Salamon, who authored a similar report three years ago. "This sector is massive, dynamic and growing at a faster pace than are for-profit businesses."

Entitled, "Maryland's Nonprofit Sector: A Major Economic Force," and co-authored by Salamon and Leslie C. Hems, the report is based on the latest data available from the State of Maryland and gives a detailed picture of nonprofit employment in Maryland and the trends in nonprofit employment and payroll over the past decade. The report is the first product of a new Nonprofit Employment Data Project at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, which Salamon heads. It is available online at: http://www.mdnonprofit.org/MdReport.pdf.

Some key findings:

Baltimore leads the state in nonprofit employment with 71,000 employees, but two-thirds of nonprofit employment is spread across the rest of the state.

Nonprofit workers earn $6 billion annually, more than 7 percent of the state's total payroll.

Fifty-two percent of all nonprofit employees in Maryland work in the health field, with just over 100,000 employed.

Nonprofit employment in Maryland has grown 30 percent over the past decade, accounting for 25 percent of all net new jobs created in Maryland. Most of that growth has occurred outside Baltimore City in the Baltimore and Washington suburbs, the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland.

Maryland nonprofits have recently begun to encounter increased competition from for-profit firms, especially in the health, social service and education fields.

The average weekly wage for nonprofit employees is 24 percent lower than that for government workers in the state and 12 percent lower than that for workers in for-profit businesses. However, nonprofit wages are on a par with, or slightly ahead of, those of for-profits in industries where both are active (hospitals, home care, and education).

The private nonprofit sector is comprised of private universities, schools, hospitals, clinics, day care centers, social service providers, symphonies, museums, art galleries, theaters, environmental organizations and many others. The data in this report draw on reports filed by employers with the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, and cover the period through the end of 1998.

The Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, an association of more than 950 nonprofit organizations representing a wide array of nonprofit activity, published this report and organized its release in Annapolis. For more information about this organization, please contact Peter Berns or visit the group's web site at: www.mdnonprofit.org.

For a county by county breakdown of nonprofit employment, please see the following table.

	Nonprofits		Manu- facturing	Construction	Total Employment
County	Number	% of Total Empl. in County	Number	Number	Number
Allegany	3,417	11.5%	4,534	1,182	29,820
Anne Arundel	9,955	5.5%	15,477	11,434	180,763
Baltimore City	71,267	18.7%	29,829	11,823	381,766
Baltimore County	28,535	8.1%	35,838	21,227	354,371
Calvert	1,331	8.4%	650	1,856	15,864
Caroline	850	9.6%	1,733	492	8,869
Carroll	3,546	8.1%	5,674	5,189	44,044
Cecil	1,170	5.3%	3,696	1,184	22,091
Charles	1,490	4.2%	1,200	3,538	35,324
Dorchester	653	5.8%	3,644	457	11,266
Frederick	4,622	6.4%	6,730	7,716	72,091
Garrett	854	8.7%	1,159	711	9,786
Harford	3,004	4.7%	4,686	4,665	63,985
Howard	6,712	5.7%	7,184	8,741	117,457
Kent	1,056	14.4%	927	425	7,312
Montgomery	31,653	7.5%	18,628	23,000	423,536
Prince George's	12,158	4.0%	12,298	25,946	301,765
Queen Anne's	231	2.3%	957	847	9,872
St. Mary's	1,264	4.0%	607	1,492	31,857
Somerset	439	6.8%	495	227	6,453
Talbot	1,786	10.2%	2,519	1,110	17,509
Washington	5,215	8.6%	9,686	3,438	60,643
Wicomico	3,492	8.5%	7,306	2,236	41,259
Worcester	714	3.7%	2,119	1,126	19,472
Non- distributable		0.0%	305	5,426	63,180
Total	195,414	8.6%	177,576	140,062	2,267,175