Re: why public accounting is important

"Aaron J. Seigo" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.kde.cafe
Message-ID <[email protected]>
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On Tuesday 08 April 2003 06:58, Steve Hutton wrote:
> > to those who gave them the money (and if they care), yes they should.
> > publicly, not necessarily. a good audit and/or looking over the books by
> > a third party or those who invested is always a good idea, though.
>
> What if an organization wanted to encourage future donors to contribute?
> Most organizations that accept donations do everything they can to
> encourage future donations.  Opening the books and publicizing their
> activities would seem to be amongst the most basic, if not fundamental
> means of doing so.

there is a difference between opening the books and stating the good you have 
done.

obviously, if you don't promote what you do then you will indeed be limiting 
your opportunities for further participation. at the same time, telling 
people how much your lawyers and printer toner costs were probably won't help 
anything. in fact, it can often create problems as you may then be required 
by public demand to justify the details of your operation, which may in turn 
not only sap further finances and time from the organization but also 
compromise the privacy of some of your larger doners/supporters.

this means that the level of financial transparency is a decision that needs 
to be made on a case-by-case basis, with legal requirements being probably 
one of the only hard-and-fast parameters.

to say all organizations that are not for profit should be financially 
transparent to the point of opening their books for all to see is an over 
simplification and a bit naive.

- -- 
Aaron J. Seigo
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