The BBB Wise Giving Alliance (an affiliate of the Better Business Bureau) has released a list of the most common errors made by nonprofit organizations. According to their analysis, the greatest failures occur in the areas of lack of transparency, inadequate oversight by the organization's board of directors and insufficient assessments of staff performance and the effectiveness of the organization's programs. Transparency is a term of art that refers to the ability of the public to become familiar with the details of an organization's internal decision making and expenditures, so that donors can hold the nonprofit accountable if its actions are not consistent with its stated mission.
Other items noted in the report included the importance of publishing an Annual Report with complete program, governance and financial disclosures and making the entity's most recent IRS Form 990 available on its website.
The BBB Wise Giving Alliance produces reports on over 1,200 nationally soliciting charitable organizations. The outcomes of these evaluations are available online at www.bbb.org/charity. For smaller nonprofit organizations, the BBB Wise Giving evaluations standards serve as guideposts for excellence in nonprofit governance and operations.
