In his 2003 paper "Global Civil Society," Professor Lester M. Salamon of Johns Hopkins University in the US evaluated the economic situation of NPOs as though the global NPO community were a country, and found that NPOs as a whole represent the world's seventh largest economy, behind America, Japan, China, Germany, the UK, and France.
美國約翰霍普金斯大學教授所羅門在 2003 年提出的「全球公民社會總覽」報告中，將 NPO 視為一個國家與世界各國比較，結果 NPO 的經濟規模僅次於美國、日本、中國、德國、英國、法國，是全球第 7 大經濟體。