Journalism Major listers:

A good site to know about.
linda crider

www.guidestar.org
Charities' IRS forms now available online

       The detailed tax returns - Form 990 - that charities file annually
with the federal government will be posted on the Internet beginning today,
making the details on how charities spend their money readily available. The
   charities themselves, including the Ford, Kellogg and Mellon foundations,
   are financing the posting of the information, and the Web site is
operated by another charity, Philanthropic Research Inc. of Williamsburg,
Va. Since June, Congress has required all charities to make their 990
returns readily   available, but the law has been widely ignored by
charities. Requesting   copies from the IRS can take up to six months. Now,
anyone with Internet   access can examine the returns. The first 140,000 of
the 220,000 or so   returns are available now, free of charge at
www.guidestar.org. The rest   will be posted before year-end.

www.guidestar.org  is an excellent resource. GuideStar is a searchable
database of more than 620,000 nonprofit organizations in the United States.
Type a name in the Charity Search box  to find a charity, or use the
Advanced Search to find a charity by subject, state, zip code, or other
criteria.

It was an informative website even before Form 990s were posted there. Form
990 is a useful source of information about an organization's mission,
programs, and finances.
It is the only standardized source of financial data on nonprofits. For more
comprehensive information, you can refer to an organization's GuideStar
Pages by using the CharitySearch.. The website also has a complete
discussion of the Form 990:
"Understanding the IRS Form 990."
The site also gleans charity news from Lexis-Nexis.

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