|
Background for Quality 990 Efforts
Over the past twenty years there has been a significant increase in the quality and quantity of data available on nonprofit organizations. The reliability, consistency, timeliness, usefulness, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness of the data remain problematic.These poor quality data have serious implications for the entire nonprofit sector because they serve as a baseline for making fundamental decisions, such as day-to-day resource allocations by program administrators, gift and grant decisions by donors, and long-term public policy decisions.
To address these concerns, nonprofit leaders have launched numerous projects to improve the quality and accessibility of nonprofit sector data. Philanthropic Research, Inc. (PRI) has initiated GuideStar, a web-based clearinghouse of financial and program information on more than 650,000 nonprofit organizations based on information from Form 990. Guidestar and the National Center for Charitable Statistics are also creating a digitized research database of nonprofit organizations' financial and descriptive data taken from scanned images of the IRS Form 990.
Another project—990 In 2000—is a three-year, sector wide effort focused on making quality financial reporting a priority for nonprofit organizations.
990 In 2000 has three components:
- Establish National and Local Nonprofit Accountability Collaboratives (990-NACs).
- Publish the Unified Financial Reporting System (Anticipated publication date is early 2000).
- Develop and disseminate technical assistance materials.
Qual990.org was created to serve organizations and individuals concerned with improving the quality of financial reporting in the nonprofit sector.
Comments and questions may be
sent via email to QRLevis@aol.com.
www.qual990.org is maintained and hosted by the Urban Institute.