Community organizing brings people together through institutions, relationships, and shared civic goals. The figures below describe the scale of institution-based organizing, the structure of faith-based organizations, the people who lead the work, and how nonprofits engage communities.
Contents
- The scale of institution-based organizing
- How faith-based organizations are structured
- Budgets and sources of income
- Boards and professional organizers
- Race, age, gender, and roles
- Collaboration and member institutions
- Nonprofit advocacy and public engagement
The scale of institution-based organizing
The Building Bridges, Building Power report describes an institution-based community organizing field that grew substantially over time. The number of local institution-based community organizing organizations increased by 42% since 1999. The field reached into 40 states and represented more than 5 million Americans through its member institutions.
Its base included approximately 3,500 congregations and about 1,000 public schools. Labor unions and neighborhood associations were also part of the institutional base. This mix matters because organizing is not limited to one kind of community setting: faith communities, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods can all provide relationships and an avenue for collective action.
The same report found that predominantly African American institutions made up 30% of institution-based community organizing membership. Predominantly Hispanic institutions accounted for 13%, while other non-white or mixed institutions represented more than 10%. More than 50% of organizing staff and board members were non-white.
These figures describe a broad network rather than a single national organization. The 40-state reach, millions of people represented, and range of member institutions show the potential scale of local organizing when institutions work through organized relationships.
How faith-based organizations are structured
The study Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State of the Field provides a more detailed picture of organizational size and development. In that study, 41% of organizations were founded after 1994, and 71% were founded since 1990. The findings therefore include both newer organizations and networks with longer histories.
Membership size varied considerably. Thirty-seven percent of organizations had fewer than 20 member institutions. About half had between 20 and 40 member institutions, while 11% had between 40 and 69. The largest organization had 230 member institutions. Across the organizations studied, the average was 30 institutional members, including an average of 26.57 member congregations.
| Measure | Finding |
|---|---|
| Organizations founded after 1994 | 41% |
| Organizations founded since 1990 | 71% |
| Organizations with fewer than 20 member institutions | 37% |
| Average institutional members | 30 |
| Average member congregations | 26.57 |
| Largest organization | 230 member institutions |
The average board of directors had 20.22 members. The average organization had 177.82 core leaders active over a two-month period. Those numbers distinguish formal governance from wider leadership: a board may oversee the organization, while many more core leaders participate actively in organizing work.
The membership mix also varied. In the study, 87.3% of organizations had no unions as members, and 76.2% had no schools as members. At the same time, 43.6% were composed entirely of congregations as member institutions. Together, these figures show that faith-based organizing often centers congregations, even when some organizations include a wider institutional coalition.
Budgets and sources of income
Financial figures in Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State of the Field point to organizations operating at a range that can support professional staff and local work but remains modest compared with many large nonprofits. The median annual budget was $150,000, and median annual expenses were $149,898.50.
Member institution dues supplied about 22% of income. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development provided 19% on average, while other faith-based funders provided just over 12%. Private foundations and corporations supplied nearly 30% of group funds, and local fundraising added another 5%.
For newer organizations, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development alone provided 24% of budgets. That higher share indicates that the funding pattern for newer groups differed from the average across the full set of organizations.
The income figures should be read as shares reported for the study rather than as a universal funding formula. A group with a $150,000 median budget could still have a different mix of dues, faith-based support, foundations, corporations, and local fundraising. The reported expenses of $149,898.50 also show how closely the median budget and median spending were aligned in the organizations studied.
Boards and professional organizers
The study counted about 2,700 people on governing boards. Just over one-quarter of board members were clergy, while about three-quarters were lay people. Board members were almost equally divided between men and women, with slightly more women.
The racial composition of governing boards was reported as 43% white or Anglo, 32% Black, 21% Hispanic, and 2% Asian. Less than 5% of board members were under age 30. These figures offer a snapshot of who held formal governance roles, separate from the wider population represented by member institutions.
The field employed a total of 460 professional organizers. Organizers devoted 87% of their time to local organizing work on average. They had worked for their current local organizations for about three years on average and for their networks for about six years.
Tenure varied within the organizing workforce. Almost 20% of organizers had started working for their network before 1990, while 57% began working for their network within the five years before the survey. The average organizer was about 41 years old, and 16% were under age 30.
The staffing figures suggest a workforce that combines experienced network participants with people who joined more recently. The distinction between about three years at a current local organization and about six years in a network also shows that organizers may carry experience across multiple local settings.
Race, age, gender, and roles
Among organizers in the faith-based study, 50.2% were white or Anglo, 28.9% were Black, 16.3% were Hispanic, 2.7% were Asian, and 0.9% were Native American. The study reported that 56.3% of organizers were men and 43.7% were women.
Organizers also represented several religious backgrounds. Thirty-six percent were Catholic, almost 12% were Baptist, and about 6% were Jewish. These figures describe the organizers surveyed and should not be treated as a complete profile of every faith-based organizing network.
Leadership roles were not distributed evenly. Forty-three percent of male organizers held supervisory roles, compared with less than 20% of female organizers. White organizers were more likely to be supervisors than Black or Hispanic organizers. White organizers had almost seven years of tenure, compared with four to five years for Black and Hispanic organizers.
Taken together, the figures connect representation with organizational authority and experience. The study shows meaningful racial diversity among organizers and boards, while also reporting differences in supervisory access and average tenure. Those measures describe different dimensions of participation: who is present, who has formal responsibility, and how long people have been in the network.
Collaboration and member institutions
Community organizing frequently depends on cooperation across organizational boundaries. In the faith-based study, over one-fifth of respondents reported regional collaboration with other organizations. Another one-fifth reported statewide collaboration.
The institutional figures help explain why collaboration can take different forms. The wider institution-based field included congregations, public schools, labor unions, and neighborhood associations, yet many faith-based organizations had narrower memberships. In the study, 87.3% had no unions as members and 76.2% had no schools as members. Nearly 44%—43.6%—were composed entirely of congregations.
This combination suggests that collaboration is not identical to membership. An organization can work with other groups regionally or statewide even when those groups are not formal member institutions. The reported averages of 30 institutional members and 177.82 active core leaders also show that organizing networks have both an institutional layer and a people-centered leadership layer.
Nonprofit advocacy and public engagement
The report Nonprofit Trends and Impacts 2021-2023 tracks several forms of civic engagement among nonprofits. In 2019, about 52% of nonprofits encouraged members or participants to write, call, fax, email, or use social media to influence policymakers or local media. The figure was also about 52% in 2020, 39% in 2020-2021, and 40% in 2022-2023.
Research and public education showed different patterns. In 2019, 37% of nonprofits conducted and publicized research to the media, the public, or policymakers. In 2022-2023, that figure was 55%. In the same 2022-2023 period, 70% of nonprofits educated the general public about a specific policy issue and/or the interests of certain groups, while another reported figure was 71% for that activity.
The report also recorded narrower forms of voter engagement. In 2022-2023, 16% of nonprofits conducted nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote work, and 13% conducted nonpartisan voter education work. Seventy-eight percent engaged with other organizations and government officials in partnership-related civic work.
Organization size was associated with participation. Large nonprofits participated in advocacy at a rate of 66%, compared with 44% for small nonprofits. Large nonprofits participated in public education at 85%, compared with 64% for small nonprofits. For voter engagement, the comparison was 27% for large nonprofits and 9% for small nonprofits.
Sector differences were also reported. Health nonprofits participated in advocacy at 75%, compared with 44% among arts, culture, and humanities nonprofits. For public education, the figures were 93% for health nonprofits, 79% for human services nonprofits, and 53% for arts, culture, and humanities nonprofits.
Advocacy, education, and voter engagement often appeared together. Nonprofits that participated in advocacy were more likely to conduct public education, at 66% versus 21%. Nonprofits that conducted public education were more likely to also do advocacy, at 90% versus 54%. Advocacy participants engaged voters at 30% versus 6%, while public-education participants engaged voters at 24% versus 4%.
Government funding was associated with higher reported engagement as well. Nonprofits receiving government funding participated in advocacy at 60%, compared with 42% among those that did not. They participated in public education at 78% versus 63%, and in voter engagement at 23% versus 9%.
These nonprofit figures cover reported activities across the measurement periods named by the source. They are useful alongside institution-based organizing statistics because they show several practical ways organizations connect people with public issues: direct communications, research, education, partnerships, and nonpartisan voter work.