Trends in employment and earnings in the philanthropic sector.

While small, the philanthropic portion of the nonprofit sector is an important and rapidly growing component of the U.S . economy. Philanthropic organizations are those privately controlled, tax-exempt nonprofit institutions to which donor contributions are tax deductible . The classification includes religious, educational, health, scientific, cultural, and social service organizations. I There has been a tendency on the part of analysts and the media to slight the role of philanthropic activities in the employment of human resources and the creation of personal income in the form of wages and salaries . In part, this is because official sources of economic data are dominated by the for-profit and government sectors . This article attempts to fill the knowledge gap by presenting the results of a systematized estimation and analysis of philanthropic employment and earnings for the period 1972-82 .2 The study, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and from the Bureau of Census special 1977 Census of Services for Tax-Exempt Service Organizations, yielded point estimates and trend information for both the sector and many of its subsectors . It thus allows one to gauge the relative importance of specific philanthropic activities and to make comparisons among them . And because the structure and classification system of the data base are consistent with