Nonprofit giant: health care

More than half the groups on Rocky's top 100 list are from this sector

Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 9, 2007 at midnight

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The Rocky Mountain News' second-annual ranking of the top 100 nonprofits speaks volumes about the role the huge sector plays in one key area - health care.

More than half the groups on this year's list are either hospitals, health centers or other groups that support those in need of specialized care. Ranked by annual revenue, the rest of the list includes everything from universities to arts groups to those focused on the poor.

The same five nonprofit hospitals ranked at or near the top of the list for the second year in a row. Smaller hospitals, mental health providers and those serving disabled and terminally ill patients appear in droves.

"The trend is that these services are now provided by nonprofit agencies," said Charley Shimanski, president of the Colorado Nonprofit Association. "Many of these programs would have been provided by state government in the past."

The Colorado Health Foundation's Annie Wohlgenant agreed that nonprofits have stepped in to provide health care for low-income and uninsured populations.

"What's sort of foreboding about this is that the health care needs and costs are going up, and it's not possible for the nonprofit sector to meet the already huge and growing demand," said Wohlgenant, the foundation's vice president of philanthropy.

The top 100 list captures just a tiny slice of the growing pie.

The state has an estimated 18,000 tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, about 8,400 of which meet the threshold for filing annual financial reports with the Internal Revenue Service.

The list ranks only those known as 501(c)3 groups, the so-called public charities. Guidestar, a database of information on nonprofits, provided the data used to compile the Rocky's rankings.

A host of other nonprofits also claim tax-exempt status - trade groups, labor unions, local parent-teacher associations, even cemetery companies, to name a few.

While stacking up the largest nonprofits helps show how big and broad the sector has become, observers contend that many of the smallest organizations play a more significant role for Colorado residents.

"Most nonprofits are grass-roots groups that were designed to assist the most vulnerable," said Richard Male, a nonprofit consultant and longtime activist in the sector. "The size of the budget doesn't define the impact."

New on the list

• Australearn

• Catholic Health Initiatives Colorado Foundation

• Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust

• Hospice and Palliative Care of Western Colorado

• Oppenheimer Funds Legacy Programs

• Pikes Peak

• Wisconsin Illinois Senior Housing

• Unavco

Notable changes

• University of Denver moves up two notches to fourth position from sixth.

• Waterstone, formerly known as the Christian Community Foundation, records a 162 percent jump in revenue.