General Statistics

It should be noted that the statistics re the Third Sector in Israel are challenged by those pointing out the distinction between public institutions that are technically nonprofit organizations, these include: museums and various cultural institutions, schools, universities, vocational and other educational establishments, hospitals and medical centers, etc. According to Guidestar Israel, which does not distinguish between subjective forms of nonprofits, here are some recent numbers of all legal nonprofit organizations in Israel:

• Over 47,000 registered nonprofit organizations

• Over 13,000 are credited with proper management

• Over 3,000 receive funding from the government

• Less than 1,500 only are public benefit companies

• Less than 1,000 provide services to the government

• Almost 3,000,000 NIS are granted by the government

• Education (22%), Religious (22%), Welfare (20%)

• Roughly 2,000 have an annual return above $1,000,000

Because of this technicality mentioned above, it would seem that the nonprofit organizations as a sector are much greater than they actually are. In particular, it does not reflect the comparative scope of normative ‘private’ nonprofits, for example regarding comparative capability to garner funds from government or from large philanthropic bodies, as opposed to locally funded organizations. Before removing public institutions from the mix of nonprofits, the Third Sector is funded nearly two thirds by government money, and the rest by philanthropists and small donors. Other information from various reports and articles show:

• An estimated 17,000 organizations are financially active

• An estimated 10% of Israel’s economy and workforce

• Israel’s Third Sector was once rated 4th largest by proportion of labor

• Israel’s Third Sector total gross product was once estimated 125 billion NIS

Without public institutions, the Third Sector gross product was once estimated as 40% of the original total, hiring roughly 200 thousand people in roughly 10,000 organizations. Some extreme critics consider less than only 1,000 privately-funded authentic social organizations. To reiterate, again, relying on statistics is difficult, as various reports rely on different variables, and reporting is not consistent year after year but rather sporadic, so we have exhaustive reports from one year here by one body, and then a few years later a different body produces another report, but based on other criteria, based on subjective opinions as to what counts for what.

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