Week 990

Matt Kirkland

It's week 990! When you say 990, I only think of one thing: Internal Revenue Service Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax.

BNB isn't a nonprofit. But we've worked with many, many charities and nonprofits over the years, and we've supported even more. One of my favorite little research tricks is Form 990; the default tax return document that nonprofits file every year. These are public! I pretty much always snoop at the organization's 990s.

This tax return isn't a detailed financial report or anything; but does give you some insight into important things. Things like: how does this group get funded? Donations? Grants? Program activities (like tickets or fees, etc)? And how is that money spent? Staff? Building assets? Program activites (like: the thing the nonprofit is there to do?). And how are they doing historically? Each return has comparisons over the last couple of years, and most nonprofits have several years of past filings available.

Plus, it's available for all kinds of nonprofits, big and small. The big brand name charity that sends you direct mail and has youtube sponsorships might put out a big glossy report, but the little family-run charity doesn't. But they ALL file a 990.

You can get most of this stuff from the organization website itself, or sites like Charity Navigator, but I'm a nerd and I like looking at the source documents. And there's something about getting the information with slightly less spin: not the rosy picture or aspirational plan, but what actually happpened last year. An annual report might give more details - usually it does - but the 990 gives just the facts.

Of course money's not the most important thing - maybe not even really AN important thing in the big picture about why most nonprofits exist - but it's instructive to see this part of the picture.