ASU Lodestar Center supports Tucson's vibrant nonprofit sector with research, training
If all of the nonprofits in Arizona were grouped together as an industry, they would be the sixth-largest sector in the state in terms of economic impact — ahead of construction, transportation and warehousing, and accommodation and food service.
That was just one of the revelations from a new research project by Arizona State University's Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation, shared in an interview on the Tucson Metro Chamber's "The Business Of" radio show and podcast.
Robert Ashcraft, executive director of the ASU Lodestar Center and Saguaro Professor of Civic Enterprise in ASU’s School of Community Resources and Development, explained in the interview that the often-overlooked nonprofit sector drives a surprising amount of economic activity in Arizona communities, as revealed through the Center's Scope of the Arizona Nonprofit Sector data platform.
Pima County, home to about 16% of the state's nonprofits with 4,474 organizations, employs over 36,000 nonprofit workers. That means about 1 in 13 Pima County workers are employed by a nonprofit of some kind, from human services organizations to nonprofit hospitals.
All of those Pima County organizations add up to nearly $5 billion in expenditures and $1.7 billion in wages paid, which has far-reaching ripple effects across local economies.
But for Ashcraft, the economic impact is just one measure of the nonprofit sector's value to communities like Tucson.
"What is the most important return on any investment of a nonprofit that serves the public good?" he said. "It's the social return on investment. ... At the end of the day, what difference does it make that there's a vibrant, robust social sector, nonprofit sector, building quality of life in a community? It's the social return. Because otherwise, why not all be businesses, right? There's this distinction that's really important."
The ASU Lodestar Center was founded in 1999 to support the nonprofit and philanthropic sector and its leaders through research, education and outreach. It has had touchpoints in Tucson communities for nearly all of that time.
To serve this growing sector — Arizona's nonprofit employment is up 39% since 2010, outpacing the for-profit sector's growth — the ASU Lodestar Center now has multiple full-time employees living and working in Tucson.
"I'll start with a signature program called Public Allies Arizona," Ashcraft said. "It's a national service program largely but not exclusively funded by AmeriCorps. And there are a number of sites all over the country under the Public Allies umbrella. (In both Phoenix and Tucson), we have allies doing their year of service. And it's everything from an ally at the Tucson United Way, at places like Tucson Parks and Recreation, a recent ally placement at the new African American museum that's on the campus of the University of Arizona.
"So these are service-minded, purpose-driven young people that through our program are not only selected to be part of the ally experience but also a leadership development program that goes across a 10-month period."
Ashcraft also touted the center's Nonprofit Compensation and Benefits Report for both Maricopa and Pima counties, as well as the fast-growing number of Tucson alumni from the center's Nonprofit Management Institute programs. Other Southern Arizona programming includes educational events for nonprofit professionals and organizational accreditation in strategic volunteer engagement called the Service Enterprise Initiative.
"Great people make great organizations," he said.
To learn more about the ASU Lodestar Center and its work in Southern Arizona, listen to the full episode of "The Business Of" and visit the center's website.
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