A Whole Whale Project
A daily health barometer for the US nonprofit sector — built from hiring activity, fundraising signals, and layoff data.
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The monthly reading on the 1–4 tier scale. This is the view that shows movement: the raw index sits inside a narrow band because every source is log-compressed, so month-level tier is where a change of direction actually becomes visible.
Each band is a tier. The scale is deliberately not zero-based — the index moves within a narrow range, and a zero baseline would flatten fifteen months of real change into a straight line. Breaks in the line are days with no data, not zeros.
Raw postings and ad counts per source, on a log scale so all five are readable at once — Glassdoor runs around 120,000 while Idealist runs around 2,500. This is where the movement lives; the weighted contributions barely budge because of the log transform.
Each source is scored as
ln(count) × weight × factor. The log transform compresses enormous swings in
the underlying counts into very small moves in the score.
| Source | Count swing | Score swing |
|---|---|---|
| Meta · nonprofit | 14.6× | 1.32× |
| Meta · charity | 7.0× | 1.22× |
| Meta · donate | 2.8× | 1.10× |
| Idealist.org | 2.6× | 1.14× |
| Glassdoor | 2.0× | 1.06× |
| LinkedIn (retired 2026-09-28) | 171.5× | 1.88× |
LinkedIn was removed from the index on 2026-09-28 after its upstream feed stopped returning usable counts in July 2026. The remaining five sources are scaled up by 1.1359 so the index stays on its published scale, and the full history was recalculated the same way. Details are in the corrections ledger.
| Source | Count | Contribution | Share | Status |
|---|
Most nonprofit sector reporting arrives annually, months after it could have been useful. It's hard to drive using only the rearview mirror. The Index reads the signals that move first — job postings, donation ad spend, layoff filings — and turns them into one number you can track day to day.
See whether the wider sector is hiring before you commit to a role.
Spot when competition for donor attention is rising, and plan campaigns around it.
Give your board objective sector context instead of anecdotes.
One email a month: where the Index landed, what moved it, and what it means for nonprofit teams. No spam.
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