Measuring Civil Society and Volunteering (PDF: 260 KB)
Source: The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies
From press release (Newswise):

The civil society sector in a wide range of countries contributes about as much to gross domestic product as do the construction and finance industries and twice as much as the utilities industry, according to a Johns Hopkins University report released today at the first “Global Assembly on Measuring Civil Society and Volunteering” in Bonn, Germany.

These findings emerge from data generated by official statistical agencies in eight countries that are the first to implement new guidelines contained in the United Nations Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions, which was issued by the United Nations Statistical Division in 2003. These guidelines call on statistical agencies, for the first time, to pull together data on nonprofit institutions that up to now have been scattered in official statistics, and to estimate as well the value of volunteer work.
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Other findings in this report, which covers Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Japan, New Zealand and the United States, include the following:

• For the five countries on which historical data are available (Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Japan and the United States), nonprofit institutions (NPIs) have recently been growing at an average rate that is twice the growth rate of GDP (8.1 percent per year vs. 4.1 percent);
• Nonprofits account for the lion’s share of value added in many critical human service fields. In Belgium, for example, they provide more than 40 percent of the value added in health and more than two-thirds of the value added in social services;
• Health and education account, on average, for 60 percent of the economic contribution of NPIs, though this varies widely by country;
• Philanthropy, including volunteering, generates at most only about one-third of nonprofit revenue. The balance comes from government and fees;
• Within philanthropy, gifts of time (i.e. volunteering) outdistance gifts of cash by almost two to one;
• Volunteer work accounts, on average, for about one-quarter of the economic contribution of NPIs, though this reaches 50 percent in New Zealand.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Business and economics, International, Nonprofits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.