Earnings (Impact) Call

This seems like a super idea from GuideStar. This is from an email I got just now. Transparency in the nonprofit sector is important. It would be great to see more of these.

Is you nonprofit this transparent?

Would this work for you?

Loosely based on the quarterly earnings calls held by publicly owned companies, GuideStar’s quarterly Impact Calls are open to everyone and give people an opportunity to learn about our results in a more timely, interactive, inclusive, and comprehensive manner. During this next Impact Call, GuideStar’s president and CEO, Jacob Harold, alongside our CFO, James Lum, will discuss GuideStar 2020, our recently released strategic plan that defines how we envision building the information scaffolding for social change. They’ll also review GuideStar’s second quarter financial results, new developments, and lessons learned.

GuideStar’s Impact Calls proactively provide real-time results to constituents and encourage a systematic dialogue that inspires data-driven decision making across the sector. Philanthropy is behind most U.S. sectors because of the lack of real-time feedback loops. That’s why GuideStar held our first Impact Call on February 24, 2014. Featured in The Washington Post and attended by 480 people, this call focused on our 2013 outcomes. Our second Impact Call, on Monday, May 12, reported on our first quarter outcomes and was featured in the NonProfit Times.

The Impact Call addresses these new transparency definitions:

• Timely–It takes almost a year for nonprofit results to become widely available through IRS Forms 990. That’s just too long. GuideStar host its Impact Calls within 60 days of the quarter (or year) end.
• Interactive– The Impact Call will be a dialogue, rather than a one-way conversation. Participants will have an opportunity to have questions answered in real time.
• Inclusive– Everyone is invited to the Impact Call. Not just GuideStar’s funders but anyone with a stake and interest in its results.
• Comprehensive– Finances are only one piece of a much larger picture when it comes to nonprofit impact. GuideStar’s Impact Call will also include reporting on programmatic and operational metrics as well as a broader discussion of our strategy.

Our goal is not to simply report our results, but to jump-start the conversation on how transparency is defined and conveyed across the nonprofit sector.