Why was a Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy created at the Urban Institute?
The Atlantic Philanthropies had been promoting research on the nonprofit sector for years and suggested starting a new center here. It would house the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) – the entity that takes the IRS Form 990 annual financial report for charities and puts it into databases for research purposes. Urban Institute had a commitment to data, knew how to handle the wealth of information, and had the resources. The feeling was that NCCS wouldn’t get lost here as it might in a university department or association. And we would know how to make the data available to researchers, build the tools, maintain relationships with the IRS [Internal Revenue Service], researchers, nonprofits, et cetera. The new center became the intersection between policy and nonprofits-an important intersection because, before the 1980s, there was little data on nonprofit organizations. A researcher would be hard pressed to explain the nonprofit sectors’ importance, its economic impact,
