An inquiry into the size of health charities: The case of Norwegian patient organisations

This paper analyses the extents to which variations in revenues and memberships of health charities – or patient organisations – might be explained by characteristics of the diseases that the organisations represent. After a theoretical discussion it inquires into 45 Norwegian patient organisations. The findings suggest that prevalence, followed by death risk are the most important characteristics of the disease for explaining charity size. There were indications that the status of the disease influenced memberships. Still, the most significant variables to explain revenues are the organisation’s age and its memberships. Cross-sectional comparisons gave no indications that public revenues ‘crowd out’ private donations.