Nonprofits represent 38% of city's GDP

Nonprofits in Springfield aren’t a sideshow. They are the main attraction.

A comprehensive study released April 23 by the Drury University Center for Nonprofit Communication revealed Springfield’s 1,556 nonprofits employ more than half of the city’s workforce, account for roughly 10 percent of all business entities and represent 38 percent of the city’s gross domestic product.

From health care providers to churches and educational institutions to charitable trusts and neighborhood groups, Springfield nonprofits are big business. The top two employers in town are nonprofits – Mercy and CoxHealth – as are multimillion-dollar organizations such as Convoy of Hope and Enactus, though the bulk are smaller institutions serving the community.

Drury’s Nonprofit Impact Study, which relied on tax filings and research that began in December 2012, found nonprofits employed 38,877 people in 2012 and held assets of $8.9 billion. The entities generated $3.8 billion in 2012 revenue, accounting for 20 percent of the city’s total.

Tanya Marion, regional vice president of human resources for Mercy Central Communities, said the health care provider dolled out $556 million in wages to roughly 11,000 workers in the Springfield area last year.

“I think with Mercy and Cox, most people know that we have a large impact on the economy, but they might be surprised by the amount of wages we actually pay,” Marion said.

According to the study, which gleaned information from 990 IRS tax forms filed in 2012, the average compensation for nonprofit CEOs and executive directors in Springfield is $88,828. The average salary for all nonprofit workers is $55,584.

Dan Prater, who led the research as director of the Center for Nonprofit Communications, said there is a wide gulf between pay for executives and top managers at large nonprofit institutions and the average or entry-level workers at smaller nonprofits. Noting pay is commensurate with large-scale job duties, he’s observed those working with smaller budgets often wear many hats and are more focused on the mission than the payout.

The average salary for an entry-level nonprofit worker in Springfield is $32,000, the study found.

“People who do this are often driven by their passion and aren’t in it for the money,” Prater said, noting that surprisingly one-fifth of Springfield nonprofits reported no assets, no revenue and no paid employees.

Among the 344 groups that rely solely on volunteers are the American Society of Woman Accountants and the O’Reilly Catholic Student Center at Missouri State University.

Randy McCoy, grants coordinator at The Kitchen Inc., said he earns an average salary for someone in his position, but he took home much more when he worked in the private sector as a production manager at Colonial Bakery. According to the study, the average for a midlevel nonprofit position in Springfield is $37,335.

“This is not what I went to college for. It is not what I was doing in my previous career. I fell into it sort of by accident, but I love it,” McCoy said, adding he began at The Kitchen as a case manager in 2005 after the bakery closed its doors. “I can’t imagine doing anything else now.”

Two months ago, Leslie Manor took the marketing and development director position at Southwest Center for Independent Living, after joining the organization two years ago as a case manager in consumer directive services. Previously, she was a stay-at-home mom who had experience in marketing for home-health agencies and as a social worker for children services.

“Right now, I am in charge of marketing our services to the public, as well as educating people about the services that we have. I also do the grant writing. That’s new to me,” Manor said, adding she submitted her first grant proposal last week. “This is the first time I’ve worked in a nonprofit, and just being able to help empower people with disabilities to live independently, as I have myself, has been great.”

Manor, who is hard of hearing, said over half of the staff at SCIL works with some form of disability.

“That’s the nice thing about when people come here for services or information or referrals, they are speaking with other people who may be experiencing or have gone through some of the same things they have,” Manor said.

At Evangel University, a nonprofit private institution, the first class of students to hold a nonprofit major will graduate in May.

Eveline Lewis, coordinator of the school’s 2-year-old nonprofit business and social enterprise program, said Evangel would graduate four students this semester and another 30 have selected a nonprofit major. The young program covers such topics as volunteer engagement, resource management and philanthropy. Lewis, who has 20 years of experience with nonprofits in Asia and the United States, said traditional business classes are a key part of the curriculum.  

“They have all of the basic accounting, economics, finance, marketing and management classes, so that if they decide they don’t want to stay with a nonprofit, they will still have the ability to work for a for-profit business, as well,” Lewis said.

Highlandville native Joshua Norrick is among the graduating seniors with a nonprofit business and social enterprise major.

“I’ve always had a passion for charity work and stuff like that, but there was never any avenue or degree that targeted that,” Norrick said, adding he currently is looking for nonprofit jobs in Springfield, Kansas City and St. Louis, but he has aspirations to start a nonprofit to assist orphanages.

Drury’s Prater said nonprofits are increasingly seeking personnel with professional degrees, which has led Springfield universities to tweak their academic offerings. McCoy, at The Kitchen, has twice attended a series of workshops at Missouri State University through its noncredit Go Lead professional development program, which trains people working in or entering the nonprofit sector.

A vibrant nonprofit industry in Springfield was the impetus behind Amy Michael starting Cares Magazine in 2010. Four years later, she is breaking into television as the host of a new nonprofit program called Cares TV.

On May 31, Michael said KOZL-TV would launch the first installment of the program focusing on local nonprofits, which will air once a month.

“I noticed there was a lot going on in the local nonprofit world, but there wasn’t anywhere where nonprofits, specifically, were being highlighted,” she said of starting her business, which makes money from a combination of membership dues paid by local nonprofits and advertising dollars.

“The fact that we went from four nonprofits to almost 40 in the magazine, without really soliciting or trying to get more, says a lot,” Michael said.