Tennessee and Colorado
Tennessee has 2,720 tax-exempt organizations recognised by the IRS and Colorado has 3,551. Side by side, with a per-resident figure for the measures where population is the thing that differs.
American Factbook Research
Side by side
1 more column on a wider screen
| Measure | Tennessee | Colorado |
|---|---|---|
| Organizations recognised | 2,720 | 3,551 |
| Recognised under 501(c)(3) | 2,290 | 3,062 |
| With a Form 990 on record | 2,674 | 3,481 |
| Private foundations | 343 | 444 |
| Organizations per 100,000 residents | 37.6 | 59.6 |
| Revenue reported | $63,490,285,837 | $66,914,420,215 |
| Revenue per resident | $8,784 | $11,232 |
| Grants paid | $5,956,805,985 | $14,213,484,357 |
Neither column is better. A state with more organizations per resident has more registered nonprofits per head, which may reflect population size, the presence of a large city, or how many small organizations bothered to register — the data cannot separate those.
What makes these two hard to compare
- The state is an organization’s address of record. A national charity headquartered in one state operates in all of them, and its revenue is counted where its mail goes.
- Revenue totals sum filings from different years, because organizations report on their own fiscal years. A state total is not a figure for any one year.
- 2024 Census resident population is the denominator for the per-resident rows. It counts people who live there, not people the organizations serve.
- Churches need not apply for recognition, so states differ partly in how many churches chose to apply.
These states elsewhere
Sources
- Exempt Organizations Business Master File — Internal Revenue Service · Public domain — U.S. Government work · retrieved September 21, 2026
- Form 990 series e-file data · retrieved September 19, 2026
Data retrieved