There are times when it feels like there’s a nonprofit on every corner in Memphis.
There’s a reason for that. The Memphis MSA, among the 50 largest metros, is #1 in the number of nonprofit organizations per 10,000 population.
Here’s the top 10 and some peer cities rankings:
1 – Memphis – 69.9
2 – Washington D.C. – 69.2
3 -Pittsburgh – 64.0
4 – Providence – 61.9
5 – Indianapolis – 59.4
6 – Kansas City – 58.0
7 – Columbus – 57.5
8 – Cleveland – 56.9
9 – Boston – 55.5
10 – Milwaukee – 54.1
16 – Austin – 50.8
17 – Raleigh – 50.1
30 – New Orleans – 45.4
31 – Louisville – 44.6
32 – Nashville – 44.5
33 – Birmingham – 44.1
34 – Atlanta – 43.9
Other Nonprofit Facts:
45,000 – Number of people working for nonprofits in Memphis MSA
$1.7 billion – Yearly payroll of Memphis MSA nonprofits
$19.39 – Average nonprofit salary per hour
58% – Primarily serving low income and disadvantaged populations
13% – Executive directors who are members of racial/ethnic minorities
Sources: National Center for Charitable Statistics, 2015; Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence, “Inside the Nonprofit Sector, 2015”; Watkins Uiberall’s 2015 “Tennessee Nonprofit Compensation”
The skewed nature of income can be very misleading. How many doctors at non-profits, St. Jude and other hospitals?
It would seem to indicate that there are many, many people making essentially nothing. That said, many of these other cities have giant nonprofits in the same sectors.