In an era of pressure on government resources, nonprofits can serve an important role in the provision of services to the public. However, without clear and quantifiable estimates of their impact, it is difficult for policymakers to justify allocating governmental resources toward these services. This is especially the case for ephemeral opportunities that arise without substantial advance notice or a special program that occurs only once (contrasted to programs that nonprofits provide on a continuing basis). This research note presents economic impact estimates for a unique example of a remarkable effort involving numerous entities from the government, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors. Our contribution is to exemplify methods that might be used to assess the economic impact of ephemeral or one-time events. Of course, each situation is unique, so the judgment of the analyst is always a key input. Using three survey-generated data points per respondent, nonprofits can replicate the methods of this study to assess the economic impact of special events herein. With estimates such as the ones examined herein, policymakers can contrast the benefits of special events with their costs in order to determine if such events are worthwhile investments.

中文翻译：

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估计一次性事件的经济影响：以约克镇的 l'Hermione 为例

在政府资源面临压力的时代，非营利组织可以在向公众提供服务方面发挥重要作用。然而，如果没有对其影响进行明确和可量化的估计，政策制定者就很难证明将政府资源分配给这些服务是合理的。对于在没有大量提前通知的情况下出现的短暂机会或仅发生一次的特殊计划（与非营利组织持续提供的计划相比）尤其如此。本研究报告提供了一个独特示例的经济影响估计，该示例涉及来自政府、营利性和非营利部门的众多实体。我们的贡献是举例说明可用于评估短暂或一次性事件的经济影响的方法。当然，每种情况都是独一无二的，所以分析师的判断总是一个关键的输入。使用每个受访者的三个调查生成的数据点，非营利组织可以复制本研究的方法来评估此处特殊事件的经济影响。通过此处所考察的估算，政策制定者可以将特殊事件的收益与其成本进行对比，以确定此类事件是否值得投资。