HIS article suggests substantive improvements in the International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations (ICNPO) T scheme and the larger system of which it is part. The general approach is to see what this well-known nonprofit classification does in categorizing smaller, volunteer-run associations locally, not just larger, paid-staff organizations. The whole of the nonprofit sector needs to be included.
National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities Classification
The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) is a major classification achievement aimed primarily at U.S. nonprofit groups (NPGs) (Hodgkinson and Toppe, 1991;Hodgkinson, Weitzman, Toppe, and Noga, 1992;Hodgkinson and Weitzman, 1993), covering a wide range of NPG purposes or fields of action. (The term nonprofit organizations is avoided here because many NPGs are less formal [Smith, 19721. Groups is the appropriate broader term, including both organizations and more informal groups [Smith, 19671 .) Much time, money, and effort has doubtless been spent to get NTEE to its present state. Bania, Katona, and Keiser-Ruemmele (1995, p. 317) noted that "beginning in 1995, the 1% will adopt this taxonomy as their primary classification scheme for organizations that apply for nonprofit status." This shows the substantial political success of NTEE. Salamon (1993) has criticized the NTEE, nonetheless, and some have found NTEE to be quite unreliable when used for coding or classifying nonprofits (Turner, Nygren, and Bowen, 1993).