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GuideStar: Getting Form 990 Online By Debra Snider Vice President GuideStar Nonprofit Service GuideStar, the national database of nonprofit information, has been placing Form 990s and 990-EZs online for over two years. Ms. Snider explains how nonprofits can take advantage of GuideStars' services and use the 990s to their best advantage. It has been almost two years since IRS Form 990 and 990-EZ for nonprofits came out of the closet and onto millions of computer screens nationwide. The public disclosure regulations that made this form truly public with a simple click of the mouse went into effect in June of 1999. In October of that same year, GuideStar, itself a public charity and the national database of nonprofit information, began posting the forms on its Web site: www.guidestar.org. At the time, we received many phone calls from 990 filers who were confused by the new regulations and somewhat concerned that the public could access their tax information so easily. Today, these calls are much rarer. Instead we have found that the majority of nonprofits embrace this new level of public accountability. Our customer service department routinely receives calls from nonprofits wanting to know when their current 990s will be available online. The timeline from submission to the IRS to posting at GuideStar is generally about 90 days. Why do you want your organization's 990 online? Although Form 990 has its critics, the new exposure has prompted nonprofits to take greater care in filling out the document. A sample review of forms from 1999 to 2000 revealed that the average number of errors declined by 16.7 percent and the number of organizations with no mathematical errors at all increased by 8.7 percent. Over time, an organization's Form 990s provide a snapshot of the nonprofit's financial health, donors, researchers and nonprofit managers – a data-driven tool from which to benchmark good practices. It's apparent that many of these individuals are taking advantage of the information's availability; last year over 500,000 Form 990s were viewed from the GuideStar Web site. GuideStar receives all the Form 990s directly from the IRS. We then convert them to PDF format and put them up on the GuideStar Pages of the appropriate organization (the report for each nonprofit is made up of several pages called GuideStar Pages). Although the IRS has stated that the entire Form 990 or 990-EZ – with the exception of specific donor information – qualifies as public information, GuideStar masks the social security number of each form's preparer before placing the image on the site. Using your 990 to promote your organization Organizations can post a wealth of additional information on their GuideStar Pages at no cost. We encourage all 501(c)(3) nonprofits to visit their GuideStar Pages often and supplement the financial data that appears there with narratives outlining their missions, programming, goals, needs and accomplishments. By providing this qualitative information, each organization can design a mini Web site at GuideStar. If an organization is a 501(c)(3) public charity, at the very least you will find its registered name and address, ruling year and whether or not the IRS requires it to file a 990. In many cases you will also see the NTEE code that categorizes its major program activities as well as revenue and asset figures. The GuideStar Pages for 990 filers also include images of the organizations' 990s – we have at least two years' worth in most cases – the names of their Board Members and a financial page listing revenue, expenses and a multi-year balance sheet that shows assets, liabilities and fund balance figures. GuideStar is your reference tool The GuideStar Pages for organizations that have provided additional data give the viewer the best look at these nonprofits' activities. You will recognize the reports by the blue GS icon that appears next to their names in your initial search results. These organizations are also listed first in the search results posted on the GuideStar site. In addition to providing access to PDF images of the actual 990s, GuideStar digitizes approximately 400 fields from the form and is creating a number of analytical tools from this information that will help improve efficiency within the nonprofit community. Our first such tool, a Compensation Report, was launched on June 1, 2001. This searchable, comprehensive, 1,300+ page report uses 990 data on salaries and benefits to define the compensation practices of 75,000 nonprofit organizations. The information is analyzed according to Metropolitan Statistical Area, nonprofit program area, job description and organizational size. The report is both a valuable tool for practitioners faced with intermediate sanction regulations and a good resource for United Way and other community funding institutions to benchmark current practices. To find out more about the 2001 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report, go to http://www.guidestar.org/services/compstudy_about.stm. |
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