onprofits play a vital role in Alaska’s economy, serving as employers, revenue generators, and providers of essential services. These insights are detailed in The Foraker Group’s latest report, Alaska’s Nonprofit Sector: Generating Economic Impact. This is the seventh such study released by The Foraker Group, a 501(c)(3) organization that strengthens Alaska’s nonprofit and tribal organizations through educational opportunities, shared services, organizational development, public policy, and fiscal sponsorship.

Laurie Wolf, Foraker Group president and CEO, views nonprofits as “the backbone” of Alaska’s economy. Their contributions often go unnoticed, yet their impact is pervasive. “You can’t go through your day in rural or urban Alaska without engaging with a nonprofit. Even when you don’t know it; it’s just part of your everyday life,” Wolf explains.

Although most people don’t think of nonprofits as economic powerhouses, they are an important “safety net,” according to the Foraker Group report. “No industry in Alaska can prosper without the nonprofit sector, and every dollar invested in the sector, regardless of the source, results in lower government costs in the long run,” the report emphasizes. “We provide both a financial and social return on investment by leveraging public and private resources.”

Nonprofits in Alaska engage in various sectors, including the healthcare, utilities, fisheries, and oil and gas industries. And they offer a wide variety of essential services like early childcare, housing, food security, and firefighting. As highlighted in the report, nearly forty communities depend on stand-alone nonprofit volunteer fire departments; about thirty nonprofit libraries operate across the state; and 75 percent of Alaskans receive their electricity from a nonprofit cooperative utility.

And nonprofits help other nonprofits. Take, for instance, the Anchorage-based Rasmuson Foundation. The private family foundation invested approximately $23 million in fifty-five communities in 2024, according to President and CEO Gretchen Guess. Since its inception seventy years ago, Rasmuson Foundation has awarded more than $550 million in grants. “We have now given away, in grants, more than Jenny and Elmer, our two founders, put into the foundation,” Guess says.

Guess enjoys collaborating with other nonprofits, communities, tribes, and other entities to provide solutions throughout the state. “We feel blessed by the work we get to do, supporting people doing great work on the ground,” she says. “I think all Alaskans know that we wouldn’t be functioning as a community without our nonprofits.”

Released in December 2024 and sponsored by Credit Union 1, The Foraker Group’s economic impact report shares a wealth of information about how nonprofits participate in and bolster the state’s economy. The report is based on extensive research—including some hard-to-find data—conducted through various state and federal sources. Its goal is to better inform policy makers and the private sector about Alaska’s nonprofit sector.

In the report, The Foraker Group addresses what it considers misconceptions about nonprofits. For example, when most Alaskans think about nonprofits, they focus on the 501(c)(3) or charitable organizations with missions that improve the community and people’s daily lives. And while 80 percent of the state’s nonprofits are charitable—including religious congregations, human services, education, and healthcare organizations—many other types of nonprofits contribute significantly to the economy.

“It is also true that no sector is either all nonprofit, for-profit, or government,” says Wolf. “It takes all three sectors to make our economy work.”

The report highlights nonprofits’ contributions to the economy on their own and through support for the state’s major for-profit industries, stating, “From associations engaging in the policy-making process to economic development agencies promoting jobs and workforce development, nonprofits contribute to the vitality of commercial enterprises.”

The nonprofit Anchorage Community Land Trust (ACLT), for example, prepares entrepreneurs and small business owners to become leaders, wealth builders, advocates, and employers in their own neighborhoods. ACLT’s flagship Set Up Shop program provides training, technical assistance, lending, and real estate support to business owners in targeted low-income neighborhoods of Anchorage. “We work intentionally with people and in neighborhoods that have been traditionally underestimated and overlooked,” says CEO Kirk Rose.

As an extension of Set Up Shop, ACLT recently received a $300,000 grant from KeyBank to build a new commercial kitchen incubator in the Mountain View neighborhood next year. The project—which Rose has spent seven years researching—will provide affordable storage and preparation space for early-stage food businesses. The kitchen, he says, will offer a safe space where caterers, food truck owners, and others can learn and “grow into the next step.”

A longtime supporter of ACLT, KeyBank is enthusiastic about the development of the commercial kitchen incubator. “This project will provide a shared space for food businesses to grow,” says Lori McCaffrey, KeyBank President, Alaska Market and Commercial Banking Sales Leader, who also serves on ACLT’s board. “In addition, it will improve food security by providing more access to more locally grown and packaged goods. At KeyBank, our mission is to help our neighbors and community thrive, and ACLT is accomplishing that through meaningful projects like this.”

The economic impact report also highlights the role of Alaska Native tribes as nonprofits. Although tribes are sovereign governments, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows them to create separate entities that qualify for nonprofit status, according to the report. At one point, all Alaska tribes held this dual status, but as of 2023, only nine were registered with the IRS as nonprofits. Regardless, these entities serve missions like healthcare, economic and community development, local search and rescue, education, support for Indigenous ways of life and culture, and advocacy for traditional food harvesting and sovereign rights. “Tribes and Alaska Native-serving nonprofits and coalitions play a vital role in the well-being, advancement, and sovereignty of Alaska’s Indigenous communities,” the report notes.

Regarding volunteering, Alaska’s rate exceeds the US average and ranks fifth in the nation, according to the report. Donations to the Permanent Fund Dividend charitable contributions campaign, Pick.Click.Give.—for which The Foraker Group wrote the original legislation—have increased about 4 percent annually over the past decade. Wolf isn’t surprised. She says, “We know that when Alaskans are given an opportunity to support the things they love—and if we make it easy for them—they will.”

In addition, Wolf points out that Alaska’s volunteerism rates are high, in part, because most nonprofits have little or no staff; volunteers operate and govern most of their organizations. Seventy-nine percent of Alaska nonprofits are run solely by volunteers. In Alaska, volunteers donate a cumulative 5 million hours annually, at an estimated economic benefit of $9.5 million.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered changes among employees and volunteers. “We saw the Great Resignation and then the Great Reshuffle in our workforce,” Wolf says. “And now we are seeing that in our board rooms; people are really thinking about what’s most important in their lives and how they want to spend their free time. And so we are starting to see a lot of shifting in our board spaces. And I encourage our nonprofits to engage their existing teams to create meaningful opportunities for new and seasoned people to volunteer.’”

Additionally, nonprofits continue to be a “steadying force” that amasses “reliable revenue” for Alaska’s economy. Alaska’s nonprofits accounted for $9.4 billion in revenue in 2023, an increase of 19 percent from 2020. The greatest increase was in 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(1) organizations. “Organizations with a 501(c)(4) designation experienced a 20 percent decrease in revenues from 2020, likely a result of the conclusion of federal pandemic relief spending,” the report notes.

Nonprofit organizations are consistently a substantial source of jobs. In 2023, there were more than 5,600 tax-filing nonprofits in Alaska, a number that has remained stable over the past decade. Roughly one fourth of those, or 1,211, had employees in 2023. “It’s a small number of organizations employing a lot of people, and healthcare, for sure, is driving that conversation,” Wolf says. The largest non-government employer in the state is Providence Alaska with more than 5,000 workers on its payroll, and Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Southcentral Foundation, and Foundation Health Partners in Fairbanks each have well over 1,500.

According to the report, nonprofits directly employ 35,302 Alaskans. Counting indirect and induced effects, nonprofits are responsible for sustaining 54,942 jobs in the state through the purchase of goods and services and employee spending. These jobs generate $3.8 billion in income, which impacts local communities.

In Alaska’s regional economies, nonprofits often play a crucial role. They employ about 14 percent of the non-government workforce and 10 percent of the total workforce, compared to 10 percent nationwide. In rural areas, mission-based organizations can account for up to 40 percent of direct employment.

In Seward, for instance, the nonprofit Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC) has a profound impact. It’s the only institution in Alaska that combines public visitation with federally authorized marine mammal response and long-term scientific research, according to ASLC President and CEO Wei Ying Wong. “While not atypical among major coastal zoos and aquariums, it is the sole provider of these types of action for Alaskan species globally, and the only institution that can provide support for animals like walrus, northern sea otters, ice seals, and the unique support needs of Alaska’s birds that require seawater as part of their recovery,” Wong says.

ASLC employs eighty-five full-time, year-round staff, plus twenty-four seasonal workers. ASLC paid staff $5,971,196 in total wages in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2023, the most recent IRS report on file. According to revised figures for 2024, ASLC estimates its financial impact in five key areas:

• Direct annual ASLC spending to the City of Seward or Seward businesses: $2 million
• Direct annual ASLC salaries into Seward: $5.7 million
• Wage value of indirect jobs created by count of primary visitors to Seward: $4.7 million
• Wage value of induced jobs from ASLC salaries in Seward: $2.4 million
• Visitor spending (day/overnight) for those who came primarily to Seward for ASLC: $3.3 million

For the City of Seward, a gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park and other tourists attractions, the estimated total primary visitor impact was $18.1 million in 2024. Secondary visitors to ASLC—where ASLC wasn’t their primary reason for visiting—spent an estimated $28 million in Seward.

The total ASLC-related economic impact on Seward for 2024 was $46.1 million. Additional benefits to Anchorage ($2.8 million), elsewhere in Alaska ($0.5 million), and out-of-state travelers ($2.5 million) bring the total economic impact to Alaska to $51.9 million.

ASLC is a powerful case study in how mission-driven institutions can deliver layered economic and social returns, according to ASLC’s Director of Mission Impact John Fraser. “Our impact measures demonstrate that the Alaska SeaLife Center is not just an aquarium—it’s a hybrid institution that merges tourism, research, education, and disaster response,” says Fraser, who has led national research on the social value of zoos and aquariums. “It generates positive economic impact beyond industry standards while building long-term resilience for Alaska’s coastal economies through its voice, role modeling, and extraordinary media reach. As business and philanthropic interests increasingly look for climate-aware, socially resonant investments, ASLC represents a model where public trust and economic value reinforce each other.”

Nonprofits rely on multiple funding sources to achieve their mission, including earned income, private donations, and public funding. Collaboration and partnerships with other organizations are also critical to their endeavors.

The ASLC, for instance, collaborates with UAF and funds research through government agencies. Over the years, it has received long-term funding from the US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, and US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The agencies recognize that ASLC aligns with federal priorities, including studies of animal collections specifically held in its facility to support research. “Our wildlife response team deploys across the Alaska coastline to federally prioritized animal strandings, bringing live animals with a chance of survival into our facility for rehabilitation, and sending our veterinarians as needed to support necropsies to explain loss of animal life,” Wong says. “We plan to continue to do this important work and continue to fundraise to match federal funding or replace what may be lost as federal budget priorities seem to be shifting away from our work and predictive science modeling.”

The Foraker Group report notes that $42 billion in federal grants and contracts were awarded to Alaska in 2023, of which nonprofits received $1.2 billion, or 3 percent. Since 2020, federal spending in Alaska had declined from pandemic peaks, but it was expected to increase with the “once-in-a-generation” influx of federal funds anticipated for the state.

The report includes a celebratory section detailing how nonprofits and tribes “ramped up” to capitalize on the economic impact of the unprecedented funding: $2.5 trillion in federal spending tied to COVID-19, $7.6 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $2.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and $2.2 billion from federal broadband funding.

However, those chickens have not fully hatched. ACLT got some bad news in April when grants from the US Department of Commerce were canceled. ACLT had facilitated training for about 500 entrepreneurs through a contract with Cook Inlet Tribal Council with funds from the Minority Business Development Agency, but the US DOGE Service informed the tribal council that agency priorities had changed.

In light of recent developments, Wolf added a cautionary note to the report: “All of the money in this section is at risk and/or has been frozen or eliminated. And I think that’s important for Alaskans to recognize and understand that we wrote this report before all those things were happening.”