This paper describes how the Bureau of the Census collects and publishes data on non-profit organisations in its economic censuses programme. The paper provides a brief history of the economic censuses and describes in more detail the census of service industries component. The progressive expansion of the industry coverage of the census is explained and related to the non-profit sector. The paper further describes concepts and methodologies that are used in collecting and publishing data for non-profit organisations. Definitions, methods of enumeration, and basic data measures are explained and contrasted to concepts used in covering the ‘for-profit’ sector. Finally, the paper describes how census data can be used to better understand the nonprofit sector and identifies some possibilities for improving information from the economic censuses and other statistical programmes which cover non-profit organisations.

This paper addresses three topics to which researchers should turn their attention in regard to the dependent variable of giving and volunteering. The first is to develop an expanded definition of philanthropy revolving around the notion of ‘gift’ and the relations of exchange and around the theological virtue of charity and the emotional dispositions of care, altruism, and love of neighbour. The second is to attend to measurement problems in regard to operationalising giving and volunteering; obtaining comparable information from givers and non-givers; improving the reliability of the data, including an effort to reduce the amount of missing data; and establishing a consistent unit of analysis. The third direction is to conduct some innovative research activity to obtain better measures and understandings of giving and volunteering, including development of a diary study, closer analysis of the relationship between class and giving, and attention to measuring the social effects or outcomes of philanthropic activity.

This article describes a revised methodology for estimating the current amount of total personal giving in the United States. The previous methodology is evaluated and it is determined that a different methodology, drawing upon recent enrichments in the data on personal giving, would yield improved historical estimates. This would lead to more reliable extrapolations of the current level of giving. Preliminary historical estimates using the new methodology are made for the period 1984 through 1991. These serve as the base for extrapolations to 1992, and results using several extrapolation formulas are compared.

The following changes are included in the historical estimates.

• • Changes in the standard deduction strongly affect the decision to itemise deductions and contributions for a large and varying number of habitual contributors. Accordingly, two groups of contributions itemisers - permanent and transitory - were identified and their contributions separately estimated. The estimate of total giving now reflects the different income and contributions levels of each group.

• • Tax return filers who can be taken as dependents on other persons’ tax returns (predominantly children of living parents) are excluded from the group of non-itemiser returns.

• • Tax return data on itemised contributions are adjusted using IRS tax return audit findings.

• • A survey-based estimate of the proportion of non-contributors (zero contributors) is used to provide a more accurate count of the number of individuals and families who habitually make contributions but do not itemise them.

• • An estimate is included of the contributions of the large number of low-income individuals and families not in the tax return data as they are not required to file tax returns.

There is but a single source of widely-accepted estimates of charitable giving in the United States, and that is Giving USA, an annual publication of the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. This paper examines the validity of those estimates and raises questions that imply a need for further research in this area.

Despite the improvements in the quality of the estimates over the years, there remain conceptual, empirical and procedural problems of which all users of the numbers should be aware. The conceptual problems are largely a matter of definition, and it is argued that grants by private foundations should be excluded from the total because foundations themselves are charitable recipients of funds from the rest of society and their inclusion results in double-counting. The empirical problems arise from defects in much of the data from the tax files that are used as sources of information for making the final estimates; some of those defects are spelled out in detail. The procedural problems stem from the lack of comprehensive information about the amounts of charitable giving from individual donors; in making its estimates, Giving USA relies primarily on an econometric equation, some of the variables in which are questionable.