November 25, 2003

CHICAGO - For the past three years, Lutheran Services in America (LSA) has topped The NonProfit Times' list of the United States' 100 largest nonprofit organizations. When the publication released the "NPT 100" this Nov.1, LSA was not ranked. However, the Oct. 30 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy put LSA as 6th on its annual list of the top 400 nonprofit organizations.

"The reason is not that the LSA system of social ministry organizations has declined in size; in fact, available data indicates that it has grown, with reported revenues of $8.2 billion - up from $7.6 billion last year," LSA said a Nov. 5 news release.

"However, in setting parameters for nonprofits that are included in its Top 100 list The Nonprofit Times considers only those organizations which receive 10 percent or more of their revenues from gifts and in-kind support," the release said.

Based in Baltimore, LSA is an alliance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and their more than 280 social ministry organizations. The independent health and human service organizations serve more than three million people in 3,000 communities across the United States and the Caribbean each year.

The Chronicle ranks nonprofit organizations according to the support each receives from the public in gifts and in-kind contributions. The members of the LSA system "continue to receive strong support, with gifts totaling more than $723 million, even in a year in which charitable giving declined for the first time in over a decade," the LSA release said. However, that $723 million is less than 10 percent of LSA's total reported income of $8.2 billion for 2002.

The National Council of YMCAs topped this year's NPT 100, reporting more than $4.27 billion in income for 2002. The American Red Cross was second with about $4.09 billion, followed by Catholic Charities USA, $2.62 billion, Salvation Army, $2.16 billion, and Goodwill Industries International, $2.06 billion.

An article by Matthew Sinclair in the November 2002 issue of The NonProfit Times cited Jill Schumann, LSA's president and CEO, who credited the organization's jump to the top of the NPT 100 in 1999 to a larger number of Lutheran hospitals reporting in 1999 than in 1998.

Sinclair's article that accompanied this year's NPT 100 explained that "the larger elements of the Lutheran Services system are hospitals that do not receive a large percentage of 'public support' revenue. Instead, the third party payments through insurance drove up program service revenues and altered the proportion so much that Lutheran Services can not claim it has 10 percent in public support for its system."

"It is important to note that The Nonprofit Times does not intend this 10-percent figure to be a measure of an organization's efficiency of operation or quality of service. Lutheran Services in America's diverse system of health and human service organizations continues to grow, even in challenging economic times," the LSA release said.

In August that publication issued its "2003 NPT Power and Influence Top 50," a list of those its panel considered the most significant "movers and shakers" in "the nonprofit world." That list included LSA's president. It noted LSA's revenue figures and said, "Schumann has a major say in how social services are delivered and what legislators think about them."

ELCA News Service
Doug Johnson is director for leadership and communication programs, Lutheran Services in America, Baltimore.
The home page for Lutheran Services in America is at http://www.lutheranservices.org/ on the Web. The NonProfit Times is at http://www.nptimes.com/ on the Internet.
Past articles of The Chronicle of Philanthropy are available at http://philanthropy.com/ for subscribers to that publication.