COUNTING LATINO NONPROFITS - A NEW STRATEGY FOR FINDING DATA

Surprisingly little data is available on Latino nonprofits in the Unit ed States. The author describes a new content analysis strategy for ex tracting Latino subsets from large data sets that lack Hispanic identi fiers. The strategy was used to generate statistics on Latino nonprofi ts from data on tax-exempt organizations compiled by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Findings indicate that Latino nonprofits compr ise less than four tenths of 1% of all tax-exempt organizations. A rel atively high proportion (two thirds) of all Latino nonprofits recogniz ed by the IRS are recognized under I.R.C. 501(c)(3). Half of all Latin o nonprofits are less than 10 years old. Latino nonprofits tend not to affiliate with other organizations. They are concentrated in the sout hwestern United States. Popular activities among Latino nonprofits are programs for veterans, scholarship and educational programs, and prom otion of business and commerce. Rare activities include youth services , legislative and political activities, litigation, and legal aid.