News Release

While job growth in the for-profit sector in Maryland has remained stagnant, the state's nonprofit sector continues to grow, adding 4,300 new jobs in 2003, the latest year for which statistics are available.

According to a study by researchers at The Johns Hopkins University, the number of Maryland residents employed by nonprofits grew to 228,031 paid workers by the end of 2003. That's a 2 percent increase over 2002 and means that nonprofit workers now account for 9 percent of the state workforce; the for-profit sector, by comparison, grew by 1/10th of 1 percent.

"What is striking is how the nonprofit sector continues to serve as a countervailing influence to the lack of job growth in the state's business sector," said Lester Salamon, director of The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies within the university's Institute for Policy Studies and a leading expert on nonprofits. "Even during the recent economic downturn, job growth has persisted in the nonprofit sector and has outstripped that in the for-profit sector."

"One of the key things to know about this study is the amount of tax revenue generated by these nonprofit sector jobs," said Peter Berns, executive director of the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, which helped establish this annual jobs study and helps disseminate the results. "There's a perception that nonprofits don't contribute to the tax rolls, but in 2003 alone, nonprofit jobs produced close to $2 billion in state and federal income tax revenue."

The report is part of the Nonprofit Employment Data Project at The Johns Hopkins University, which seeks to quantify the size and scope of nonprofit employment in Maryland and elsewhere in the U.S.

Some other key findings of the latest Maryland report:

More people work for nonprofits in Maryland than work in manufacturing or construction.

Close to one third of all private jobs in Baltimore City — 28 percent — derive from the nonprofit sector, which leads the state and emphasizes the importance of the nonprofit sector on Baltimore. Thirty six percent of all nonprofit employment in the state is in Baltimore City.

Job growth in the nonprofit sector was strongest in the suburbs surrounding Baltimore and Washington and now accounts for 52 percent of all nonprofit employment in Maryland.

The nonprofit sector employs twice as many workers than does the state's entire banking, finance and insurance industries combined.

Nonprofit employment in Maryland's rural areas also remains strong. A full 12 percent of the state's nonprofit jobs are in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore.

Over the past decade, nonprofit employment in Maryland has grown 29 percent, while private, for-profit employment has grown 16 percent.

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. To view the entire report, including a jurisdiction by jurisdiction breakdown of nonprofit employment, see: www.jhu.edu/~ccss/research/pdf/md2005.pdf.

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 2003.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies (CCSS) is publishing this report in collaboration with the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, the largest state association of nonprofit organizations in the US, with over 1500 member nonprofits representing a wide array of nonprofit activity. For more information, visit the CCSS web site at: www.jhu.edu/ccss.

To arrange an interview with one of the study's author's, please call 443-287-9960.