Web Sites Keep Tabs on Charities

Donors can now use the Internet to easily look up tax returns detailing how nonprofit groups spend their dollars, but local charities are cautioning that some of the information is outdated.

Financial information on more than 200,000 public charities across the country--including 1,300 in Ventura County--was posted this week on a Web site operated by a Virginia-based group called Philanthropic Research. A parallel effort by state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer went online two weeks ago.

While local nonprofit leaders generally welcome the Internet disclosures, they are concerned information for some charities on the national registry--found at www.guidestar.org--is years old and may give potential donors an outdated picture of a charity’s financial health.

For instance, information listed for the United Way of Ventura County is from 1993, when the umbrella agency began a years-long slide into deficit spending. The local United Way has since turned its finances around and will be in the black this year, said the group’s vice president, Beverly Viola.

But someone browsing the GuideStar registry may not realize they are viewing outdated files, Viola said.

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“Our financial people will have to investigate and see what we can do to update the documents,” she said.

Debra Snider, a spokeswoman for Philanthropic Research Inc. of Williamsburg, said the group is aware some data are old and is working to bring files up to date. Since going online Monday, 512 charities have called to request that more recent information be posted, Snider said.

“We are trying to catch up,” she said. “And as you can imagine, it is a monumental task.”

The registries for the first time offer the public immediate and easy-to-get snapshots of a charity’s financial activities, ushering in a new era of accountability, proponents say. In the past, some charities have tried to skirt a requirement to provide copies of financial documents, said Kate McLean, executive director of the Ventura County Community Foundation, which operates a clearinghouse of information for nonprofits across the county.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from donors who have gone into offices of charities here in Ventura County and have been told they weren’t required to release that information,” McLean said. “There’s been a lot of dodging. So we are very pleased that the information is becoming more accessible by the day.”

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Nonprofit groups each year are required to file a financial disclosure, called the 990 form, with the Internal Revenue Service. The returns include such data as revenue and expenses, including how much a charity spends to pay staff members and stage fund-raising events.

California unveiled its own database two weeks ago. Located at www.caag.state.ca.us, about 80,000 nonprofits registered in the state are listed, said Peter Shack, supervising deputy attorney general. Information on many charities is missing, however, because the attorney general’s office is posting only returns dated after July 1998.

“Charities file throughout the year,” Shack said. “It’s going to take a full year before all of the charities are up. . . . When up to full speed, we will have a three-year history for each group.”

McLean predicts the data will be used not only by donors, but also by charities tracking each other. And that will inevitably lead to more competition and better efficiency on the part of nonprofits, she said.

“Clearly, this will make charities more accountable, and that’s a good thing,” McLean said. “Most of the charities I am aware of really struggle to do a good job with service delivery. But the accountability side is something they haven’t paid much attention to because they haven’t had to. Now they will.”

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Besides financial data, GuideStar includes information on the charity’s mission, its goals and accomplishments, executive profiles and objectives. The pages allow every nonprofit group--big and small--to have immediate exposure on the Internet, McLean said.

“It’s leveled the playing field. You don’t have to be the American Red Cross to have a Web presence.”

Jim Mangis, executive director of FOOD Share in Oxnard, said he sees it as a valuable advertising tool. His group’s biggest challenge is getting people to know it exists, he said.

“For us, I see it more as a marketing opportunity than a problem,” he said. “It gets our name out there and you can look us up pretty easily. Most nonprofits worry about getting tarred and feathered by the abuses that do occur with a few. This is a way of building trust for all the nonprofits who are doing a good job.”