Giving Compass' Take:
- Jeff Williams spotlights the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy's launch of Philanthropy Insights, an open-access tool to assess local philanthropic ecosystems.
- What tools are at donors' and funders' disposal to assess what the nonprofit and philanthropic ecosystem actually looks like locally?
- Ask a custom question to find other articles and resources focused on understanding the local nonprofit ecosystem.
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As part of the data and analysis team at the Johnson Center, one question crosses my desk more than almost any other: “What does the nonprofit and philanthropic landscape actually look like in our backyard?”
Community leaders, grantmakers, and nonprofit executives are constantly seeking clear answers to essential questions:
- How many 501(c)(3) public charities operate in our region, and what is their combined revenue?
- How do foundation assets and grantmaking dollars in our area compare to neighboring communities?
- Where does philanthropic capacity align with — or lag — actual community need?
In most cases, the data we produce at the Johnson Center isn’t just for curiosity’s sake — it’s built to be shared directly with boards, community partners, and policymakers to drive strategic decision-making.
Yet, answering these questions consistently across regions has always faced a major hurdle: the geography dilemma.
The Challenge: Apples-to-Oranges Geographies
Finding reliable data that simultaneously captures nonprofit capacity, foundation resources, and community need in a single, comparable view is notoriously difficult.
Most public data is organized by county. But counties vary widely in population, from dense urban centers with over a million residents to rural counties with fewer than 25,000 residents. When you compare raw numbers across counties, are the differences driven by structural philanthropic realities or simply by population size? Furthermore, neither community need nor philanthropic grantmaking neatly stops at county borders.
The Solution: Standardizing by Congressional District
To solve this, we looked at regional data through an underutilized lens: U.S. Congressional Districts.
Organizing philanthropic data at the congressional district level provides three immediate advantages:
- Standardized Population Baselines: By constitutional design, congressional districts represent roughly equal populations in most states (approximately 700,000 to 775,000 residents today), allowing for true apples-to-apples regional comparisons.
- True Regional Footprints: Congressional districts capture broader economic and commuting ecosystems, reflecting how nonprofits deliver services and how regional funders operate. It is common for funders and nonprofits alike to serve multiple counties as part of regular operations.
Read the full article about Philanthropy Insights by Jeff Williams at Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy.