Blog home Data & Insights How many nonprofits will shut their doors? State-level data

How many nonprofits will shut their doors? State-level data

Jacob Harold (he/him)
August 17, 2020

Closed Down painted on the glass door of a business

The whispered question continues: How many nonprofits will shut their doors because of the COVID-19 crisis? In July, we released an analysis that attempts to offer an answer to that question at the national level in the United States.

Of course, we can’t predict the future. Instead, we ran a set of 20 distinct scenarios to understand a range of possible outcomes. We’ve been gratified to see that analysis cited throughout the media and the nonprofit community. But we also recognize that national data is only of use in general terms. Most nonprofit activity is rooted in place: actual people in actual communities.

Accordingly, my colleagues Carol Brouwer and Anna Koob have re-run our analysis at the state level. This new data offers a sense of the geographic distribution of economic fragility across the nonprofit economy.

Our analysis indicates the District of Columbia is poised to lose the most nonprofits per person and Utah the fewest. The following table ranks all 50 states plus D.C. from greatest to least per capita closure. The highlighted column indicates an average across scenarios of how many nonprofits would go out of business because of the current crisis. This list is based on the same methodology we used for our national analysis.

For readers who want a closer look at the data, we have also prepared a spreadsheet with all 20 scenarios for each state and D.C. This file includes the most dire and most optimistic scenario by state as well as the number of nonprofits we analyzed in that state.

State	Rank in per capita closure	Baseline (median)	# of nonprofits closing (median scenario)	Additional nonprofits lost because of crisis (net median)

District of Columbia	1	265	473	208
Vermont	2	28	131	103
North Dakota	3	23	109	86
Rhode Island	4	34	151	117
Maine	5	51	183	132
Minnesota	6	297	843	546
Alaska	7	44	114	70
Iowa	8	117	415	298
Massachusetts	9	337	986	649
New York	10	1,046	2,875	1,829
South Dakota	11	33	112	79
New Hampshire	12	52	173	121
Oregon	13	186	556	370
Montana	14	41	133	92
Pennsylvania	15	482	1,558	1,076
West Virginia	16	60	207	147
Maryland	17	268	761	493
New Mexico	18	75	245	170
Colorado	19	316	780	464
Connecticut	20	144	430	286
Hawaii	21	65	176	111
Wyoming	22	23	68	45
Arkansas	23	103	325	222
Nebraska	24	99	238	139
Wisconsin	25	207	622	415
Kansas	26	90	295	205
New Jersey	27	342	962	620
California	28	1,525	4,213	2,688
Missouri	29	227	640	413
Washington	30	243	751	508
Michigan	31	314	967	653
Tennessee	32	243	688	445
Ohio	33	428	1,188	760
Oklahoma	34	95	347	252
Delaware	35	44	106	62
Virginia	36	317	860	543
Georgia	37	337	1,010	673
Indiana	38	223	640	417
Illinois	39	465	1,218	753
North Carolina	40	312	930	618
Florida	41	619	1,866	1,247
Louisiana	42	142	409	267
Kentucky	43	126	370	244
South Carolina	44	131	411	280
Alabama	45	111	376	265
Mississippi	46	86	246	160
Idaho	47	52	139	87
Texas	48	848	2,217	1,369
Arizona	49	157	500	343
Nevada	50	62	178	116
Utah	51	73	183	110
Total		12,008	34,374	22,366

It is not unusual for nonprofits to close their doors. The pandemic may add thousands of organizations to that turnover. Just how much remains to be seen. Viewing the data at the state level helps us begin to understand the consequences of nonprofit closures in communities across the country.

Notes on methodology: The full methodology can be found in the original post. Some 950 of the nonprofits in our original set are located in U.S. territories. We included them in our national analysis but not here.

Tags:

About the author

Jacob Harold (he/him)

Executive Vice President, Candid
See bio

As president & CEO of GuideStar, Jacob Harold worked closely with colleagues at the Foundation Center to form Candid in 2019. During his tenure at GuideStar, he oversaw a doubling of the organization’s reach, the creation of the GuideStar Profile Program, the launch of the Overhead Myth campaign, and hundreds of new partnerships. Jacob came to GuideStar from the Hewlett Foundation, where he led grantmaking for the Philanthropy Program. Between 2006 and 2012, he oversaw $30 million in grants that, together, aimed to build a 21st-century infrastructure for smart giving. At the beginning of his career, Jacob worked as a climate change campaigner for Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace USA and as organizing director at Citizen Works. He also worked as a consultant to nonprofits and foundations at the Bridgespan Group and as a climate change strategist for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation based at The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, India. Jacob was named to the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 NonProfit Times (NPT) Power and Influence Top 50 lists. He served as a term member for the Council on Foreign Relations and on the advisory boards of Bright Funds Foundation, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and Docusign IMPACT. He currently serves on the advisory boards of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the Duke University Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship and is a member of the editorial board of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

Close

Jacob Harold says:

March 10, 2021 10:20 am

Good question. We haven't yet run another analysis because we don't yet have a lot of new data. This analysis took the most recent data we had last year. This kind of analysis wouldn't change a lot if we re-ran it now b/c the new data would not yet reflect the impact of the crisis.

It will probably be another year until we have enough new data to be able to meaningfully say which of our scenarios was the closest approximation of what actually happened. But in the meantime, as you say, many nonprofits are struggling. Policymakers, funders, and others do see a "light at the end of the tunnel"--the challenge is that for many nonprofits the tunnel is months or years longer.

Jacob Harold
Executive Vice President, Candid
Sarah says:

March 5, 2021 11:13 am

Any updates to this summer data? We're hearing concerning things- policy leaders seem to think nonprofits are doing ok because of the flurry of relief dollars... unfortunately, folks have been able to limp along, but we're facing a cliff of much higher expenses and huge community need... without the commensurate funding to help us weather this.

Updated data for early 2021 would be valuable to help us accurately reflect what's going on on the ground now...
angeles, jr. magayanes says:

October 16, 2020 2:34 am

thanks for a great endeavor and advocacy
Lee Allen says:

August 21, 2020 10:36 am

On a certain level, I have to agree with H. Jackson. There are "zombie" non-profits that stumble along year after year that are either redundant or simply not needed. Unfortunately, some very valuable non-profits whose mission forces them to carry high overhead will also disappear, and I don't know how the affected clients will manage.
H. Jackson says:

August 20, 2020 7:44 am

Thanks for this thought-provoking article, Jacob. Frankly, I think one of the possible "benefits" of this pandemic, although it's painful short-term, is a purge of some nonprofits. There are more way more than we actually need to address societal issues. As someone who has worked in the nonprofit industry, I have send countless nonprofits hang on far longer than they should in a hand-to-mouth existence with very few societal gains to show for their work. It just becomes a funding game to keep core staff employed, existing just to exist. By weeding out the low performers, valuable resources can go to those that can demonstrate their relevance and measurable impact on the community.
K Samuels says:

August 19, 2020 7:50 pm

Candid is addressing serious issues that are affecting nonprofits today.