[Discussion] Social Sector is 10% of US GDP

[Grant Bowman]

Hi everyone,

I had a conversation with a friend of the family today. She asked
about what I did and I tried to explain a bit about the
social/third/volunteer sector which includes nonprofits like
partimus.org. Like "open" source type movements this sector seems to
struggle with a verbal identity crisis. :-)  In my conversation I was
trying to think of a statistic and finally found it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_sector cites that 10% of US GDP
is related to the Voluntary sector. The number is confirmed by
http://books.google.com/books?id=1tDYuib1Oz0C which has a preview of
the book online. This number was a surprise to me when I first heard
it and will help me explain the context of what I do with partimus.org
to people I meet. The following quote also has interesting information
and is more recent. The % of employment approximates the GDP number. I
just thought people on this list might be interested in this.

Cheers,

Grant

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http://grantspace.org/Tools/Knowledge-Base/Funding-Research/Statistics/Number-of-people-employed-in-the-nonprofit-sector

According to a 2012 report by the Center for Civil Society Studies at
Johns Hopkins University, nonprofit employment represents 10.1 percent
of total employment in the United States in 2010, with total employees
numbering 10.7 million. The nonprofit workforce is the third largest
of all U.S. industries behind retail trade and manufacturing.

During the Great Recession (2007 to 2009), the nonprofit sector gained
jobs at an average rate of 1.9 percent per year, while the private
sector lost jobs at a rate of 3.7 percent per year.

The average annual growth rate for employment has been higher for
nonprofits during the 2000-2010 period at 2.1% whereas the for-profit
sector shrank by -0.6%.

Nonprofit employment by sector is approximately 57% for health
services, 15% for education, 13% for social assistance, 7% for civic
associations, 4% for other, 3% for arts and culture, and 2% for
professional services.