Hi there,
Transparency International [1][2], a global initiative for
monitoring corporate and political corruption, has published a list
of ten traits for transparency, that charitable entities in Germany
can commit to, in order to become recognized by Transparency
International as "transparent".
(German) list of traits is here [3], translated and adapted to our
entity, those are:
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We hereby commit to make the following informations public on our
website, and make them easily accessible alongside this text:
1. our name, domicile, address, and founding year
2. complete statutes, and other revelant information, e.g. on mission,
and how we achieve our goals
3. date of our newest tax exemption statement
4. Name and titles of our most important decision makers
5. Timely, comprehensible, and as-complete-as-possible reports about
our work and initiatives
6. Personnel: number of paid and unpaid people working on or for the
entity; kinds of employments, if applicable
7. Sources for funding: list annual incomes, in e.g. an appropriate
profits and losses statement, split for charitable funds, government
funding, for-profit income and investment returns
8. How funds are spent: specify how funds from above are spent
annually, in e.g. an appropriate profits and losses statement, as well
as in the balance sheet
9. List contractually linked entities, e.g. subsidies, partnering
organisations, external for-profit entities etc.
10. List legal entities, whose annual accumulated payment to us
exceeds 10% of our gross annual income. Natural persons donating more
than said amount have to be listed individually as well, at least
anonymized
We further confirm that our foundation's bodies meet regularly, and
produce minutes. Inquiries about our entity are answered in due
time. Our annual reports get signed by our board, and under an audit,
this commitment is part of the vouched-for subject matter.
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I would think we do most, if not all of that already, and if we
missed an item, it's worth doing anyway. What would be needed still,
should the board agree on supporting this, is to stick the above +
links to the requested information into a prominent location on our
website. See [4] for an (again German) example.
References:
[1] http://www.transparency.org
[2] http://www.transparency.de/English.1222.0.html
[3] http://www.transparency.de/Initiative-Transparente-Zivilg.1612.0.html
[4] http://www.transparency.de/Zehn-Informationen.1613.0.html
With best regards,