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During the busiest time of year for philanthropy, donors may wonder if the nonprofit organizations they are considering donating to will be good stewards of their funds.
ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer already allows users to thoroughly research charities, but now we’re adding more features to help you understand your organization’s financial health. Starting Monday, you’ll be able to search for organizations that have reported significant theft or had their auditors report significant financial issues.
The primary document available in Nonprofit Explorer is tax forms, but we’ve also added audits, available starting in 2017. Federal and state regulators use them to better understand an organization’s financial management and governance, including information about financial controls. Compliance with government subsidy programs.
With this update, you can now search all 33,400 organizations that have submitted audits to the federal government for spending $750,000 or more in federal funds in a given fiscal year.
We also made it easier for auditors to scan findings that raised various concerns. The most serious one is the “going concern” flag. This means that the organization may not be able to meet its financial obligations in the near future. This may indicate that your organization’s expenses are exceeding its revenue. Or it may indicate other problems, such as risky investments or financial mismanagement.
There are other findings you can search for, such as “Major Noncompliance,” “Material Weakness in Internal Control,” and “Material Weakness in Internal Control.” These are all findings that donors and researchers would like to explore further. The results of your organization’s most recent audit are also flagged on your organization’s page, making it easier to find.
Our search also now includes the option to view organizations that have reported material misappropriation of assets in their most recent tax return. This is a rare but serious issue in which an organization is discovered to have misappropriated 5% of its assets or $250,000, whichever is less.
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If you don’t know the name but want to find an organization that matches these criteria, just click the search button without typing any text to see the entire list of nonprofits. You can filter using the tools on the right side of the screen and press the “Apply” button.
We have lots of ideas for future improvements and additions to Nonprofit Explorer. If you have any feedback on these improvements or features you would like us to add to the site, please contact us. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
As always, if you use Nonprofit Explorer and value the information it provides, please consider making a donation. Thanks to support from people like you, we can keep updating and improving this app.
