Nonprofits - especially big ones - are continuing to drive employment growth in Maryland, a new report suggests.
Nonprofit employment grew almost three times faster than for-profit employment in 2006, according to a study released yesterday by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations. The charity sector includes small-budget homeless shelters and soup kitchens but is dominated by big anchors like the Johns Hopkins University and the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Nonprofit jobs increased by 2.9 percent from 2005 to 2006, the most recent numbers available. For-profit employment increased by 1.1 percent, the study found. All told, nonprofits accounted for nearly 245,000 jobs - about one out of every 10 statewide. That's higher than the nation's tally of one for every 14.
Nonprofits are responsible for nearly one out of every three private sector jobs in Baltimore, which has been losing for-profit employment for years.
"Nonprofits are more diverse than a lot of people think," said Stephanie Lessans Geller, co-author of the report and research project manager for the Center for Civil Society Studies. "They're a very important economic engine in Maryland."
They added more than 6,800 jobs in total in 2006. That's a quarter of all private sector job growth in the state.
The study, which looked at all 501(c)(3) organizations, best known as charities, isn't catching a one-year blip. Employment grew about 20 percent among nonprofits versus 7 percent among for-profits since 1999.
These numbers don't take into account the current economic slowdown, which is affecting the state as well as the nation. But the charity sector tends to expand in bad times as well as good, said Nancy Hall, senior adviser at the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations. She's hearing from nonprofits that "there's a demand for their services and that they're growing."
"A lot of growth that we're seeing in the sector is coming from the larger organizations," Hall said.
The larger organizations are really large. The Johns Hopkins University employs more than 29,000, making it the biggest private employer in the state. Nonprofit hospitals and medical systems, including MedStar Health and the Johns Hopkins Health System, are also near the top of the list.
Add the Johns Hopkins institutions together, and they employed 45,000 in 2006. They've been creating about 700 jobs a year.
