President & CEO's Report for August 2012

As I mentioned in last month’s report. We have three primary goals we want to accomplish over the next few years. Here is where we stand on each of them:

1. Increase the number of charities evaluate from 5,500 to 10,000
For the first time in at least four years, the number of charities we evaluate has begun to climb beyond 5,500! This is our first month into the effort and we have added over 100 charities. Our tally now is over 5,600 and climbing. We are well on the way to reaching 6,000 by the end of this year and then intend to add another 1,000 per year thereafter until we reach 10,000.

2. Evaluate all 10,000 charites on CN 3.0 which includes rating results reporting
We have just concluded a third round of research with three graduate schools - Indiana University, Syracuse University and Northern Illinois University. They have provided us with a tremendous amount of useful feedback which we are currently culling through to further revise and improve the CN 3.0 prototype. Our next step is to run the updated rating tool by a group of experts and advisors. Our goal is to begin posting data on CN 3.0 on our web site by the end of the year.

3. Provide a page of information (even if not rated by CN) on every registered nonprofit in America
Our IT staff have begun to mock up what the page of information would look like and the technical requirements to access data from the IRS. We hope to have these pages up and running by the middle of next year.

4. Other news

• We had our first ever face-to-face meeting with the Director of the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Division - Ms. Lois Lerner. She was very complimentary regarding our work and provided her insights on the challenges of the current 990 form. She also was very open to suggestions for ways to improve upon the existing form and left the door wide open for ongoing dialogue. We plan to keep in touch!
• We have added a new Board member.  Ms. Marie Wieck is a Director at IBM and has a long career in the world of information technology. Welcome!
• We received foundation grants recently from the Morris Foundation and the Levine Foundation for general operating support. We also continued to get a great response from all of you to our spring appeal letter. Thank you all so very much!

I hope you all enjoy the rest of the summer and stay cool!
All the best,
Ken