Overview

Non-profit organisations are usually portrayed as a non-competitive third sector. In reality, there is no competition for market share in this area, but rather for resource providers. Several works deal with the topic of financial analysis in the NPO sector, but there is still no uniform classification of key figures for NPO-relevant financial analysis. The literature often fails to differentiate between NPOs and for-profit organisations when analysing key figures. This paper examines the current state of reporting in the Austrian third sector and the transparency with which the use of funds is presented. It conducts a financial analysis of the annual reports from a sample of 80 Austrian NPOs. To this end, NPO-specific key figures were identified, calculated and analysed across different sectors. Furthermore, the most important sources of financing were identified and their distribution within the sample was examined. A certain shift towards self-financing through service contracts, especially with the public sector, was observed.