How many international nonprofits can you count?
Short answer, more than 40000.
Long answer, 40000 is just the tip of the iceberg. Wikipedia says that ”The number of internationally operating NGOs is estimated at 40,000″: the source is ‘Global Civil Society 2001′ (Anheimer et al., 2001), containing info about international organizations and the location of their secretariats (together with other useful stats like links between international organizations, nationality and membership of international organization leaders, breakdown of international organizations by purpose, etc.). However, Wikipedia continues, ”National numbers are even higher: Russia has 400,000 NGOs” and “India is estimated to have between 1 million and 2 million NGOs”. Counting governmental nonprofit organizations too, the number might be way bigger. Another source, for example, reports that “According to the NCCS Table Wizard, there are currently nearly 1.4 million nonprofit [i.e. governmental and non governmental alike] organizations in the United States.”.
Regarding international nonprofits, however, unfortunately no conclusive data can be found on the Net, perhaps because (strangly enough) it’s hard to define what “international” really means (international activities? international membership?) and it’s also hard to find your way through the variety of nonprofit types registered/recognized in the different countries of the world.. Idealist.org supports that point by stating that “there just aren’t any lists that include all nonprofits. There are, though, many websites that offer access to specific types of nonprofits or nonprofits that are active in certain parts of the world”.
Coming back to my first question… My guess is half a million. What do you say?
Picture courtesy of Esse, through CreativeCommons license.
I tend to define international NGOs in a developed world/undeveloped world relationship. I tend to think of it as the facilitation of resources from the West elsewhere. I guess that’s my hangup. If that’s the definition, I think your guess might be too high.
Hey abenamer,
Thanks for your comment! I was waiting for some others to reply as well, but I guess I’ll just write what I have to say now and not delay any further.
I think many people have the same idea as you do when somebody mentions the words “international NGO” or “international nonprofit”. And I think indeed this reflect the attitude of being used to international NGOs facilitating resources from the West elsewhere, as you say: it’s almost as if the only time when we’re concerned with other countries, when it comes to the nonprofit sector, is when there are humanitarian/development issues involved; in any other case, we think of the national level first and only in some rare cases of the global scope. Also, it might be the case that nonprofits at the country level complement the work of the government in certain areas, whereas due to the absence of an international government, the chances for a global complementary nonprofit sector to thrive are lower.
Nevertheless, I think that the concept of international nonprofits as truly global organizations, right from their birth, is worth exploring and it’s going to become more relevant in the next decades, where due to the easiness of traveling and communicating internationally there could be more people who feel like part of a global civil society and run their nonprofit organizations accordingly, regardless of the topic.
For example, here’s a couple of international nonprofit organizations that are not connected to humanitarian/development issues, and in my opinion are the symbol of the new things to come:
http://www.couchsurfing.com/
http://www.aiesec.org/
http://www.wya.net/
I feel first and foremost a citizen of this world and I hope that this blog will contribute to a higher awareness of the international nonprofit sector as an opportunity to express our potential to improve things on a global level!
Ciao,
Nicolò
[...] recent comment to my previous post by abenamer made me realize that the words “international nonprofit [...]
How many international nonprofits can you count?…
How many international nonprofit organizations are out there? Where are they? Is anybody keeping tally?…
International organizations are necessary and often the only organizations willing and/or capable of addressing a problem. The government is nothing more than an instrument of the people. But this only works if the people make their preferences known. Constructive Sovereignty is an emerging theory pioneered by John Maszka intended to address globalization’s increasing onslaught against state sovereignty. The theory maintains that states are not the primary actors, their constituents are. Therefore, their preferences are not fixed. Since states merely represent the preferences of their constituents, they will only adhere to and ultimately embed those international norms their constituency will accept. Rather than push for larger and more powerful international organizations that will impose global norms from the outside in, the theory of Constructive Sovereignty posits that ultimately change must come from the inside out. That is to say, from each state’s own constituency. As each state’s constituents become more and more international, they will become more receptive to international norms. In this way, international norms are embedded and viewed with legitimacy while each state’s sovereignty is maintained and respected.