New Zealand is now part of the international comparative study of the non-profit sector undertaken by the Johns Hopkins University, which compares 41 countries across the world, and builds a very interesting picture of global non profit activity. The New Zealand data is based on the satellite accounts of the not for profit sector which was published last year.

Some very general comparisons for our sector in Aotearoa New Zealand:

• We have  a large sector  in  terms of the non profit workforce (paid and unpaid) and proportion of GDP
• We have a large proportion of volunteers in our workforce
• The proportion of income from government is proportionally small
• We are about evenly split between ‘service’ and ‘expressive’ activities – which is unusual - only and only the Nordic group of countries have a higher ratio of expressive to service delivery