What are the specific things youâd want to see on a transparency page? I think transparency is important, and I try to maintain BERIâs transparency page, but Iâm wondering if it meets your standards.
Hi Sawyer, I looked at your transparency page and I believe that it is somewhat satisfactory for the kind of people who are familiar with the nonprofit structure.
For a potential donor who is totally unfamiliar with the organization and also does not live in the US, they may find it difficult to navigate and understand.
For example:
People outside of US (and probably some people living in the US) may not be satisfied with IRS 990 filings as they may not know how they should interpret that information (myself included) and how much importance they should give to it (in the context of transparency).
There are other documents, for example one called âByLawsâ, which, again, for a non-US person (or US people who are not familiar with those docs) they canât judge the importance of such document for the transparency of an organization.
Alright, all of this is not exactly a criticism, especially if your organization is only focused on the US audience for donations and contributions.
As to the annual reports I think it is a positive sign that they contain a lot of information. I would suggest though it would make for a more friendly transparent page if some key information was summarized in a neat table of contents shown at the top of the page like: salary of each team member, total donations received per month or year, how much spent (on what), etc., so that someone from outside could have some overall idea of what is going on before they dig deeper on those more technical and dense PDFs.
A note: it is probably there in the annual reports or 990 files, but I couldnât easily find info about team members and directors salary. I think that is crucial information to be found buried inside PDFs. I know that is a minor thing but if you take a look at the transparency page of Buffer you will have a good illustration of what I am imagining.
I conclude by saying that your page is probably satisfactory for someone well versed in how nonprofit work, its financials, IRS files, etc (and also have a good 30 minutes to sit down and read). Not friendly for the lay people, I have to say.
But again, this would be irrelevant if the lay public is not your target audience or the main source of donations.
What are the specific things youâd want to see on a transparency page? I think transparency is important, and I try to maintain BERIâs transparency page, but Iâm wondering if it meets your standards.
Hi Sawyer, I looked at your transparency page and I believe that it is somewhat satisfactory for the kind of people who are familiar with the nonprofit structure.
For a potential donor who is totally unfamiliar with the organization and also does not live in the US, they may find it difficult to navigate and understand.
For example:
People outside of US (and probably some people living in the US) may not be satisfied with IRS 990 filings as they may not know how they should interpret that information (myself included) and how much importance they should give to it (in the context of transparency).
There are other documents, for example one called âByLawsâ, which, again, for a non-US person (or US people who are not familiar with those docs) they canât judge the importance of such document for the transparency of an organization.
Alright, all of this is not exactly a criticism, especially if your organization is only focused on the US audience for donations and contributions.
As to the annual reports I think it is a positive sign that they contain a lot of information. I would suggest though it would make for a more friendly transparent page if some key information was summarized in a neat table of contents shown at the top of the page like: salary of each team member, total donations received per month or year, how much spent (on what), etc., so that someone from outside could have some overall idea of what is going on before they dig deeper on those more technical and dense PDFs.
A note: it is probably there in the annual reports or 990 files, but I couldnât easily find info about team members and directors salary. I think that is crucial information to be found buried inside PDFs. I know that is a minor thing but if you take a look at the transparency page of Buffer you will have a good illustration of what I am imagining.
I conclude by saying that your page is probably satisfactory for someone well versed in how nonprofit work, its financials, IRS files, etc (and also have a good 30 minutes to sit down and read). Not friendly for the lay people, I have to say.
But again, this would be irrelevant if the lay public is not your target audience or the main source of donations.