- Why has Benefacts supplied a classification for every nonprofit listed on this website?
- How has Benefacts classified nonprofits?
- Why are some organisations classified twice?
1. Why has Benefacts supplied a classification for every nonprofit listed on this website?
Benefacts aims to make the world of Irish civil society organisations more accessible and transparent. As part of this process, we studied various approaches to classifying nonprofit organisations, and consulted with our stakeholders on the best approach for Irish nonprofits today.
As a result of this consultation process, Benefacts adopted a slightly modified version of the standard used internationally by the UN and others to classify civil society organisations in all parts of the world. An advantage of this approach is that it will allows for the first time for trans-national comparisons between the Irish nonprofit sector and its constituent sub-sectors, and their counterparts abroad.
Using this classification standard, benefacts.ie provides the opportunity for people to explore individual sectors, using a description of their purposes that has been derived from their constitutional documents. The benefit of classification is that it allows for meaningful comparisons to be made between different organisations that are involved in the same kinds of activity.
2. How has Benefacts classified nonprofits?
Each Nonprofit in the Benefacts database have been classified into one or other of twelve sectors, and further sub-classified within these sectors. Benefacts uses the evidence of their constitution or their statement of charitable purpose to assign a primary classification to nonprofits, and – where necessary - secondary one. If you have concerns about how Benefacts has classified your organisation, contact us.
3. Why are some organisations classified twice?
If an organisation is engaged substantially in more than one activity, or its activities straddle two sectors, it is assigned a secondary classification by Benefacts. In these cases, the primary classification refers to the principal activity of the organisation. For example, The Friends of St Brigid’s Hospice is classified primarily as a fundraising body, with a secondary classification in health. It is not practical to assign more than two classification categories.
If you consider that your organisation has not been correctly classified, please contact us and we will rectify the matter.