Counting the sector: employment, payroll and the register

The published counts, each with its year and its method — a register is not a census of the living

The employment measure: The best count of the sector's working weight comes from the Indiana Nonprofits Project at Indiana University's O'Neill School, which measures nonprofit paid employment from state wage records. Its 2021 report, on data through 2019, found the nonprofits of Economic Growth Region 2 — Elkhart, Fulton, Kosciusko, Marshall and St. Joseph counties — employing over 38,000 people, with about 65 percent of them in St. Joseph County and the county taking 72 percent of the region's nonprofit payroll; St. Joseph alone accounted for 8 percent of all nonprofit employment in Indiana, second among the state's ninety-two counties only to Marion County's 28 percent. The project's earlier study, on 2005 data, found the same shape a generation earlier: the region's nonprofits employed 34,400 with payrolls over $1.1 billion, St. Joseph County held 63 percent of the region's nonprofit jobs, and nonprofits furnished 17 percent of all employment in St. Joseph County against 8 percent statewide — the county's second government, measured, employing roughly one worker in six.

The register count: The federal register counts paper, not life. The IRS-derived county listing for St. Joseph County carries 3,086 exempt organizations, with reported assets of $45.8 billion and income of $18.5 billion — totals dominated, to the point of meaninglessness as a measure of the civic sector, by the University of Notre Dame, whose endowment and hospital-scale budgets sit inside the same register. The city-of-South-Bend listing carries 1,716 organizations. The metropolitan directory count for the South Bend–Mishawaka metro area gives 2,668 organizations with 74,888 employees, over $12 billion of revenue and $51 billion of assets, including 189 foundations and grantmaking organizations holding $2 billion. Every one of those numbers is printed here as its makers made it, dated and sourced — and every one needs the Urban League above as its footnote: that corporation stands in the register today with a ruling of 1951 and zero income, counted in all of these totals, while the national rosters no longer carry it. The register counts the incorporated; the employment study counts the working; the distance between them is the size of the sector's graveyard and its nursery at once — churches that no longer meet, foundations a lawyer formed and a family forgot, and corporations, like the Fischoff for its first twelve years, that did the work before the paperwork existed.

Sources:

1. Indiana Nonprofits Project (IU O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy), "Nonprofit Paid Employment in Economic Growth Region 2" (February 2021) — over 38,000 nonprofit employees EGR-wide in 2019; ~65% in St. Joseph County; 72% of the region's nonprofit payroll in St. Joseph; St. Joseph at 8% of Indiana nonprofit employment, second to Marion County (28%).
2. Indiana Nonprofits Project, "Indiana Nonprofits: Where Knowledge Meets Public Good" (2005 data series) — 34,400 regional nonprofit employees, payroll over $1.1 billion; St. Joseph County 63% of regional nonprofit employment; nonprofit share of county employment 17% vs. 8% statewide.
3. IRS exempt-organizations register, as compiled in the county and city directory listings (taxexemptworld, accessed November 2026) — St. Joseph County: 3,086 organizations, $45,765,125,866 of assets, $18,514,144,390 of income; City of South Bend: 1,716 organizations; printed with the Notre Dame dominance stated, as the listings' own totals require.
4. Cause IQ, South Bend–Mishawaka IN–MI metro directory — 2,668 organizations; 74,888 employees; $12B+ revenue; $51B assets; 189 foundations/grantmaking organizations with $2B in assets.