Numbers of NGOs

Notes: Since the mid-1950s, the number of NGOs worldwide has increased dramatically, along with a broadening of the focus of their activities and a strengthening of their influence. NGOs are now impacting policies and guiding agendas that once were nearly exclusively the arena of governments and corporations.

In terms of NGOs internationally active, the Yearbook of International Organizations has documented an almost 30-fold increase during the past half century. In 1956, the Yearbook listed 985 active, “international NGOs,” with this category, including organizations operating in at least three countries. By 1996, that number had swelled to more than 20,000. In 2,000, the Yearbook documented 29,495 active, international NGOs. Anheier places the number of internationally operating NGOs at 40,000.

The increase in national and local NGOs has been even more explosive. Half of all European NGOs were founded in the past decade. In the former Eastern bloc countries, more than 100,000 nonprofit groups alone were set up between 1988 and 1995. The exponential increase in NGOs in the United States and India has led to an estimated two million NGOs currently active in the United States and more than one million groups in India. Not only have we witnessed increases in the ranks of human rights and humanitarian organizations based in industrialized countries (the “Northern NGOs”), but also new groups emerging in developing countries (the “Southern NGOs”). Russia has 400,000 NGOs.

Of course, compiling accurate statistics on NGOs is complicated by regional variation in what is classified as an NGO. In keeping with U.N. ECOSOC Resolution 1996/31 and 2001 United Nations DPI guidelines, WANGO defines an NGO as a not-for-profit organization that has not been established by a governmental entity or intergovernmental agreement and which is organized on a local, national, sub-regional, regional, or international level. However, legal definitions vary according to country, and the term NGO is often used to designate a broad assortment of entities. Furthermore, there is great variety in the activities that NGOs perform.

Particularly in the past decade, there has been a broadening in the focus of NGO activities. NGOs espouse a wide variety of agendas, causes, and ideologies – from promoting research and education, to human rights and aid-related activities, to environmental activism, to health care. According to a 1995 survey of 22 nations by The Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies, NGOs in these countries had 29 million people on staff (including 10 million volunteers). Twenty-three percent of those involved were active in education and research, 20.6% in social services, 18.9% in culture, sports and recreation activities, 15.7 % in health care, and the remainder in areas such as business and professional associations (6/3%), development and housing (6.1%), law, advocacy and politics 3%), environmental protection (2.5%), philanthropy (1.2%), and international activities (1.0%), including human rights, relief and aid groups.

In the survey it was found that most NGO funding comes via income from fees for services rendered (47%), and from public support (42%). Very little NGO funding comes from foundations and organized philanthropy – an average of just 11% in the 22 countries surveyed.