Inland Northwest Nonprofit Sector Intelligence

A public-data portrait of the nonprofit sector in Spokane County and the surrounding Inland Northwest

Executive summary The seven-county Inland Northwest is home to 5,256 active nonprofits serving about 882,000 residents — roughly 60 organizations for every 10,000 people. The sector generates $6.5 billion in annual revenue and holds $26.2 billion in assets, but both are concentrated in a handful of large institutions. Formation activity is surging, finances are broadly stable but thin — a third of larger organizations ran a deficit in their most recent filing — and per-capita human-services coverage is weakest exactly where measured social vulnerability is highest: Spokane County.

5,256 Active nonprofits NCCS BMF, June 2026

$6.5B Annual revenue most recent IRS filings

$26.2B Total assets most recent IRS filings

768 Human services organizations NTEE I, J, K, L, O, P

395 New nonprofits in 2025 strongest organic year on record

Key findings

1. The sector is large, and growing faster than ever. New IRS tax-exempt rulings reached 310 in 2024 and 395 in 2025 — the strongest two-year run in the region’s history, even counting the one-time IRS administrative spike of 2014, following a brief pandemic dip. The 2020s are on pace to out-produce the 2010s, the previous record decade. → Trends

2. Composition mirrors the states; scale does not. The region’s category mix — human services first (23% of all registered organizations, a third of those with a classified category), then education and public benefit — tracks Washington and Idaho statewide averages closely. What distinguishes the region is concentration: 73 organizations with more than $10 million in revenue, led by Kootenai Health, Gonzaga University, and the region’s community health systems, account for the large majority of all nonprofit dollars. → Sector Overview

3. Density is highest where populations are smallest. Spokane and Kootenai counties host about three-quarters of the region’s nonprofits, but rural and college counties (Lincoln, Latah, Whitman) sustain far more organizations per resident. Spokane County itself has the region’s thinnest per-capita nonprofit coverage, with fast-growing Kootenai County next. → Geography

4. Finances are stable but thin. Among 502 larger organizations with current Form 990 filings, the median operating margin is +5.0% and median reserves are about 10.6 months of expenses — healthy on the surface. But one in three ran a deficit in the latest year, and one in five holds less than three months of reserves. Human services organizations hold thinner reserves than the sector overall. → Financial Health

5. Coverage is weakest where vulnerability is highest. Spokane County has the region’s highest CDC Social Vulnerability Index score and 22 of its 38 high-vulnerability census tracts — yet the region’s lowest rate of human-services nonprofits per resident. Twenty-seven ZIP codes combine above-median poverty with below-median human-services coverage. → Service Gaps

Why this exists — and what to do with it

The Inland Northwest’s nonprofit sector is one of the region’s largest economic and social forces — more than 5,200 organizations, $6.5 billion in annual revenue, and the primary safety net for food, housing, employment, and youth services. Yet decisions about it — where philanthropy goes, which services get funded, where new organizations form — are routinely made from anecdote, because the underlying facts sit scattered across IRS files, Census tables, and federal vulnerability indices that few people have time to assemble. And because the region spans a state line, no single state-level report has ever described it whole. This site assembles that picture from public data, documents every method, and keeps it reproducible.

Who it’s for. Funders can see where dollars concentrate and where coverage gaps persist. Nonprofit boards can benchmark their reserves and margins against 500 regional peers. Policymakers can overlay service coverage with poverty and social vulnerability at the neighborhood level. Researchers and students can build on an open, documented pipeline.

What the data suggest doing:

1. Fund resilience, not just programs. One in five larger nonprofits holds less than three months of operating reserves. General operating support and multi-year grants matter as much as new initiatives.
2. Target the gap map. Twenty-seven ZIP codes pair above-median poverty with below-median human-services coverage, and Spokane County’s most vulnerable neighborhoods have the region’s thinnest per-capita coverage — addressable through siting decisions, satellite services, and capacity grants. → Service Gaps
3. Plan for Kootenai’s growth. The region’s fastest-growing county has nearly its thinnest nonprofit infrastructure per resident — a gap that compounds if unaddressed.

About this project

This site analyzes the nonprofit sector across seven counties: Spokane, Whitman, Stevens, Pend Oreille, and Lincoln in Washington, and Kootenai and Latah in Idaho — the greater Inland Northwest centered on Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.

All data are public: the Urban Institute’s NCCS Business Master File, IRS Form 990 extracts via the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey estimates, and the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index. Methods, definitions, and limitations are documented on the Methodology page.

Created by Vivek H. Patil, Ph.D., Professor of Marketing and Director of Graduate Business Programs, Gonzaga University School of Business Administration. Analyses run July 2026.