As the demand for nonprofit services increase and thus the operating expenses of nonprofit organizations keep rising, the need for nonprofits to have more predictable sources of income gains higher importance.
Nonprofit organizations are finding opportunities to use their earned revenue, which comes from fees for services or other entrepreneurial sources, as an additional source of income.
Government grants and contracts are represented variously in the earned and contributed revenue categories. At this time it is not possible to separately identify government sources. For example, government grants are often reported as grant income, confused with philanthropic grants. Reported contracted revenue, likewise, is not separated out and sometimes is reported as grant income.
These figures do not include all contributions to religious congregations, as they are not required to file with the IRS. Therefore, revenues and contributed revenues are underreported.