Human Services — what people do for each other — is a large and diverse field, whose subfields we have defined according to our experience of donors’ interests. In markets other than Massachusetts, other categories might seem appropriate, especially at deeper taxonomic levels of sub-subfields. We have combined Health and Aging, for example, because so many health issues increase with age, so that many charities deal with both. On the other hand, children’s diseases or disabilities are surely a field of particular interest to donors; we have put them under Health and Aging. Distinguishing between health issues and disability issues, or identifying substance abuse as a health issue, is important to people in those fields, so we try to accommodate them — they know best.

In 2003-4, Massachusetts had 1,353 small and mid-sized Human Services charities — roughly 52.5% of all such charities, with total income of just over $1 billion, or 60% of the total for all charities with budgets below $3 million. The breakdown of major subfields is:

Subfield        Number (%)  Income  (%)

Children & Youth 256 (19%)  $182M (18%)
Girls & Women     87  (6%)  $ 69M  (7%)
Health & Aging   406 (30%)  $310M (30%)
Well-being       596 (44%)  $454M (45%)

Before 1929, there were only two Human Services charities in Massachusetts; 20 were added during the Depression, there were three decades of steady growth: 41 in the ’40s; 41 in the ’50s; and 57 in the ’60s. But then the take-off occurred: 215 in the ’70s; 342 in the ’80s; 459 in the ’90s. This merits study, but several possible contributing factors might be the opening up of new fields (homelessness, domestic violence and sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS, et al.), improving statistical data illuminating public problems, and perhaps also downsizing and devolution on the states of some federal human service programs.

The income structure of Human Services charities is:

Number of charities in Human Services Subfields by Income Range

      Children  Girls Health Well-   
Income  &Youth &Women &Aging Being Ttl
       
$2-3M       16    5    33    56    110
$1-2M       42   23    74    99    238
$500-999K   69   22    98   151    340
$100-499K  111   31   170   236    548
<$100K      18    6    31    54    109

Totals     256   87   406   596   1345