I donated 10% of my annual (graduate student) income to VillageReach a few weeks ago. As I say in my post, this is not because I have special attachment to international aid.
I would be willing to donate to SIAI if SIAI coud convince me that it would use the money well. At present I don’t even know how much money SIAI receives in donations a year, much less how it’s used and whether the organization has room for more funding.
I believe that there are others like me and that in the long run exhibiting transparency would allow SIAI to attract more than enough extra donations to cover the costs of transparency. Note that GiveWell leveraged 1 million dollars last year and that this amount may be increasing exponentially (as GiveWell is still quite young).
At present I don’t even know how much money SIAI receives in donations a year, much less how it’s used and whether the organization has room for more funding.
I would also like to see SIAI post a description of its finances and leadership structure.
I agree it would be good if more info on finances was readily available. There are tax returns (although I think the most recent is 2008) available on Guidestar (with free registration). But as for leadership structure, is this link the sort of thing you had in mind or were you looking for an actual org chart or something?
Having run a small non-profit operation for a few years now, the standard of transparency I now like is simply publishing our General Ledger to the Web every year.
What’s nice about it: it’s a) feasible (our accounts are in Xero and once you’ve figured out the export it’s a breeze), b) the ultimate in transparency. We still do summary reports to give people an idea of what’s happened with the money, but anyone who complains or for some other reason wants the raw data, I can just point at the GL.
I donated 10% of my annual (graduate student) income to VillageReach a few weeks ago. As I say in my post, this is not because I have special attachment to international aid.
I would be willing to donate to SIAI if SIAI coud convince me that it would use the money well. At present I don’t even know how much money SIAI receives in donations a year, much less how it’s used and whether the organization has room for more funding.
I believe that there are others like me and that in the long run exhibiting transparency would allow SIAI to attract more than enough extra donations to cover the costs of transparency. Note that GiveWell leveraged 1 million dollars last year and that this amount may be increasing exponentially (as GiveWell is still quite young).
I would also like to see SIAI post a description of its finances and leadership structure.
I agree it would be good if more info on finances was readily available. There are tax returns (although I think the most recent is 2008) available on Guidestar (with free registration). But as for leadership structure, is this link the sort of thing you had in mind or were you looking for an actual org chart or something?
Having run a small non-profit operation for a few years now, the standard of transparency I now like is simply publishing our General Ledger to the Web every year.
What’s nice about it: it’s a) feasible (our accounts are in Xero and once you’ve figured out the export it’s a breeze), b) the ultimate in transparency. We still do summary reports to give people an idea of what’s happened with the money, but anyone who complains or for some other reason wants the raw data, I can just point at the GL.
OK, the leadership structure info is satisfactory.