The Internal Revenue Service reported that during the first 10 months of 2020, the average number of nonprofits created per month rose from 4,678 to 5,141, even though data for the last two months of that year have not yet been made available. More than 1,200 of those received classification as food, agriculture, or nutrition groups, reflecting a 27 percent increase from 2019.
Those gains included a 41 percent increase in food programs, which refers to all nonprofits that work to address hunger, and a 38 percent increase in charities that consider themselves a food bank or pantry. The other category of new nonprofits that showed a significant (24 percent) increase encompassed at least 740 new civil-rights, social-action, and advocacy charities approved in 2020.