The number of nonprofit fundraising jobs (Click here) has continued to grow, albeit at a slower rate, in recent years.
A recent analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service by The Chronicle of Philanthropy found that the number of nonprofits throughout America has more than doubled in the last 15 years, reaching 1.3 million in 2010, even though the actual number of nonprofits being created has continued to drop each year.
During 2010, only 59,945 organizations applied for nonprofit status, which is a 30 percent decrease from 2007. That number could decline even more if the IRS takes away the nonprofit status of more than 300,000 organizations that did not file an informational tax form.
Most experts say the lack of applications is either due to the economy or a new procedure the IRS uses to evaluate requests for tax exemptions. That procedure eliminated a step in the application process, which could cause yearly comparisons to be inaccurate.
"Regardless of the cause, the slower growth rate is seen by some nonprofit leaders as a good sign in an era when more and more groups are competing with each other to raise money and work on similar causes," the analysis notes.
Organizations that are applying for nonprofit status are having an easy time getting it. The IRS approved 48,934 applications - about 80 percent - during 2010 and rejected fewer than 1 percent of applications for nonprofit status. About 18 percent of organizations never complete the application process.
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