TCD’s Centre for Nonprofit Management launches report on Irish Nonprofit Sector

Posted on: 28 June 2006

A national report into the Irish nonprofit sector, The Hidden Landscape: First Forays into Mapping Nonprofit Organisations in Ireland, was launched by the Provost of Trinity College, Dr. John Hegarty on June 20th last at the Centre’s inaugural Summer School. Commenting on the report, Dr Hegarty said: “The report provides us for the first time with a clear picture of the field of nonprofit organisations in Ireland. Such organisations play important roles in our society and are central to the delivery of many crucial services, not least within our educational system from primary level through to third level. Trinity College supports and encourages such research which enables us to understand our society more clearly and facilitates its ongoing development.”

In March 2005 over 24,000 detailed questionnaires were mailed to nonprofit organisations throughout Ireland, eliciting a 21% response rate with a wide geographical spread. With the data received the Centre for Nonprofit Management was able to describe the key features of the complex entity which is the Irish nonprofit sector. It is worth noting that this sector covers voluntary, community, charitable, nonprofit and non-governmental organisations. Its fields of activity include culture, recreation, social services, environment, civil rights, education, community and economic development, housing, health, philanthropy, voluntarism, professional associations, religious congregations and overseas development.

The Hidden Landscape: First Forays into Mapping Nonprofit Organisations in Ireland paints a broad sweep of the Irish nonprofit sector. The report found that the majority of nonprofit organisations were young with half of responding organisations established since the mid-1980s, indicating a high degree of activity within the sector. A quarter of responding organisations were based in Dublin with Cork, Galway, Limerick and Kerry also returning significant numbers of organisations.

Responding organisations reported having a total of 1.5 million volunteers which means that one in three Irish people are engaged in voluntary activities in these organisations. These volunteers worked 465,624 hours annually. While organisations reported that the number of their volunteers had increased over the past three years, which to some extent goes against the popular myth that we are developing into a selfish society, the volunteering hours reported were fewer than in earlier studies. This again may reflect the increasing constraints on time in Irish society. Interestingly, male volunteers outnumbered female volunteers by a ratio of 3:1, while in contrast women outnumbered men among all types of employees by a ratio of 2:1.

When asked about roles and values within the sector, it was also interesting that respondents saw the ‘community building role’, ‘the expressive role’, the ‘innovation role’ and the ‘advocacy of values role’ as much more important than the ‘service’ role. Similarly the ‘community value’ was identified by respondents as their most important value followed by the ‘humanitarian value’ and then the ‘environmental’ and ‘cultural’ values. These findings begin to unpack assumptions which have been made about the Irish nonprofit sector to date and call for a broader vision of the roles performed. It has been assumed, for example, that the service role is the most important role played by nonprofit organisations and that this is the basis for their long and strong relationship with the State.

When the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern launched the Taskforce on Active Citizenship he spoke of the need to encourage active citizenship through public policy initiatives. There is much in this report that will be helpful in that process, as the data on the importance of the community building role and the expressive role indicate.

On the financial front, responding organisations reported a total income of €2.564bn and a total expenditure of €2.556bn in 2003. It is possible to estimate from the findings that the nonprofit sector accounted for 3.84% of GNP (€4.47bn) in 2003. However while the overall income figure is impressive it is worth noting that most organisations are small and half had an income of less than €40,000 and an annual expenditure of less than €39,000.

Among responding organisations the relationships found to be most important for the generation of financial resources for the sector were those with the State, and the local community or wider society. Sixty per cent (€1.142bn) of reported income came from the State with only 10.5 per cent (€201m) of income coming from private donations which again belies expectations. When the private donation figure is examined in greater detail it can be seen that certain funding areas are prioritised, with a quarter of all donations going to international development, and one fifth of donations going to social services.

The report also identified the need for a legal infrastructure, which points to the timeliness of the forthcoming Charities Regulation Bill 2006. There was a high degree of informality shown within the sector with only 33% of respondents incorporated as companies limited by guarantee. Only 41% had a Charity or CHY number. Many respondents expressed ambiguity about their own legal definition and status. Two-thirds of responding organisations did not have legal status, but some believed erroneously that being granted a Charity or CHY Number by the Revenue Commissioners conferred legal status on them. Given the increasing requirement for accountability in Irish society, this confusion needs to be addressed within the regulatory framework and through other supports to nonprofit organisations. Towards 2016, the Social Partnership Draft Agreement just published, has committed additional resources to assist community and voluntary organisations to meet accountability regulations as well as a commitment to provide appropriate resources for such organisations.

Resource vulnerability and survival challenges could also be seen amongst different kinds of nonprofit organisations at certain stages in their organisational life cycle and these present challenges at governance and management level which will be addressed in future research by the team at the Centre for Nonprofit Management. Environmental organisations, arts and culture, and heritage organisations demonstrated significant deficits between their income and expenditure. This contrasted with international development organisations and religious groups who were noticeably more secure in their funding. The most resource secure groups were philanthropy, trade unions, sports and recreation, advocacy, law and politics and economic and community development and housing.

The Hidden Landscape: First Forays into Mapping Nonprofit Organisations in Ireland, as the first attempt to capture the Irish nonprofit sector, is necessarily broad and lays the foundation for further study. The Centre for Nonprofit Management will be carrying out research into the complexity of roles performed by Irish nonprofit organisations as well as the contribution of the nonprofit sector to the development of social capital and the relationships between nonprofit organisations and the State. Other research underway will describe the geographical positioning of organisations, their ranking, resources and development patterns.

However, importantly, the report calls for centralised information collection and management as the basis of effective policy and practice in the nonprofit or third sector. The inclusion of a question on volunteering in the 2006 Census of Population is noted in the report as a good beginning to State activity on the collection of data in this field, but the scope of such data gathering needs to be broadened. While this report provides invaluable information that has not been available before, regular updating is necessary, and the State is best positioned to efficiently manage the collection of data. The proposed regulator for charities will be able to do good work in this regard. However, the centralisation of data collection on all nonprofit organisations and not just charities, through Labour Force Surveys, (and the separate identification and classification of nonprofit organisations), would be a major initiative to be welcomed.

The Centre for Nonprofit Management is also pleased to announce the launch of a national Directory of Nonprofit Organisations in CD Rom format. Compiled from data provided by nonprofit organisations who responded to the national survey, and who wished to be included, it is the most comprehensive directory of Irish nonprofit organisations produced to date. In total some 3,700 nonprofit organisations are included in this Directory. All organisations are classified according to an international classification system. The Directory has a number of search options and can be searched by county and classification as well as alphabetically. It is envisaged that this will be a valuable resource tool for the sector and society in general.

TCD’s Centre for Nonprofit Management Launches Report on Irish Nonprofit Sector

Posted on: 28 June 2006

A national report into the Irish nonprofit sector, The Hidden Landscape: First Forays into Mapping Nonprofit Organisations in Ireland, was launched by the Provost of Trinity College, Dr. John Hegarty on June 20th last at the Centre’s inaugural Summer School. In March 2005 over 24,000 detailed questionnaires were mailed to nonprofit organisations throughout Ireland, eliciting a 21% response rate with a wide geographical spread. With the data received the Centre for Nonprofit Management was able to describe the key features of the complex entity which is the Irish nonprofit sector. The sector covers voluntary, community, charitable, nonprofit and non-governmental organisations. Its fields of activity include culture, recreation, social services, environment, civil rights, education among many others.

The Hidden Landscape: First Forays into Mapping Nonprofit Organisations in Ireland, lays the foundation for further important study of the sector. The Centre for Nonprofit Management will be carrying out research into the complexity of roles performed by Irish nonprofit organisations as well as the contribution of the nonprofit sector to the development of social capital and the relationships between nonprofit organisations and the State. Other research underway will describe the geographical positioning of organisations, their ranking, resources and development patterns.