Abstract This paper describes how the Bureau of the Census collects and publishes data on non-profit organisations in its economic censuses programme. The paper provides a brief history of the economic censuses and describes in more detail the census of service industries component. The progressive expansion of the industry coverage of the census is explained and related to the non-profit sector. The paper further describes concepts and methodologies that are used in collecting and publishing data for non-profit organisations. Definitions, methods of enumeration, and basic data measures are explained and contrasted to concepts used in covering the ‘for-profit’ sector. Finally, the paper describes how census data can be used to better understand the nonprofit sector and identifies some possibilities for improving information from the economic censuses and other statistical programmes which cover non-profit organisations.