Although it came out a little before we started blogging, we have been remiss in not letting you know about an important Colorado Nonprofit Association report that Corona Research played a big part in creating.

Return on Investment: The Economic Impact of the Nonprofit Sector in Colorado details both the breadth and (huge) economic impact of the Nonprofit Sector in Colorado.

To determine the economic impact of the sector, Corona Research completed a mail survey of over 600 nonprofits in Colorado and performed some detailed quantitative modeling to calculate direct and indirect economic impacts.

We found that the nonprofit sector contributes over a $2 Billion net inflow to the Colorado economy each year when you combine direct (over $900,000) and indirect (over $1.2 million) impacts.  The average nonprofit adds nearly $300,000 to the Colorado economy.

Nearly half of the money flowing into Colorado from the nonprofit sector comes from Federal funding, which represents a return to the state of its citizen’s Federal tax dollars.

All of this indicates that the nonprofit sector is an excellent return on investment, and we are extremely gratified to have been able to complete this project with the Colorado Nonprofit Association.

The report (which also includes a demographic profile of the nonprofit sector completed by Lester Salomon and colleagues) is chock full of other interesting information about the importance of nonprofits in Colorado (and for those of you who would like to see the nuts and bolts of our modeling process, it’s detailed in the report’s appendix).