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. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com