Your desire for accountability is a growing trend that has been becoming all the more acute in the wake of the financial scandals. It remains to be seen how “retail fundraisers” such as the Salvation Arm, which solicit small amounts from large quantities of donors, will be impacted by this trend.

Certainly, a call for more accountability and a realistic expectation of where money goes is necessary.

I wrote about this very top in my blog post titled “How Much is This Dollar Worth?” and offer alternative measures for evaluating nonprofits.

http://blog.redroostergroup.com/2009/10/01/fundraising-how-much-is-this-dollar-worth/

I stopped giving to them a couple of years ago, when I realized this, and recently heard a similar complaint from a fundraising professional who left a local Salvation Army organization (where he was emplyoed) when he found out how poor their accounting practices were.

The international branch of the Army does file a 990, and it indicates such low incomes for its lead staff that it is difficult to imagine how they recruit and retain qualified staff to do the diffcult jobs of managing quality programs and stewarding funds at an acceptable level.

Unfortunately, too many people do not perform adeqaute research when deciding which organizations to support. The Salvation Army MAY do good works — but they do not have what I consider adequate documentation of their donated funds to prove how well they steward or manage donations.

Donor beware!