Nonprofit Websites: Prevalence, Usage and Commercial Activity

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the extent to which nonprofits have websites and how they are used. Our empirical analyses of 1,000 nonprofit organizations indicates substantial differences in website presence and use among mission categories–conservation related, arts and cultural, religious civil rights, and science and technology. We find that while asset level and mission have statistically significant main effects on predicting website presence, interactions between them are also important. Our estimates suggest that at any particular asset level the increase in probability of having a website with each unit increase in assets is greatest for civil rights organizations (compared to religious, conservation, and cultural organizations) and least for scientific organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Logistical analysis
• nonprofit
• Internet
• commercial activity
• websites
• resources