San Luis Obispo Tribune | 03/05/2006 | WATCHDOG REPORT: Nonprofits skip fundraising costs

San Luis Obispo Tribune | 03/05/2006 | WATCHDOG REPORT: Nonprofits skip fundraising costs: "WATCHDOG REPORT: Nonprofits skip fundraising costs
Of the 167 San Luis Obispo County nonprofits that reported more than $100,000 in revenue to the IRS, almost 60 percent did not declare fundraising costs
By Abraham Hyatt
ahyatt@thetribunenews.com

As donors gain increasingly easy access to nonprofits’ financial records, they’re often urged by national and local experts to give to organizations with low overhead.

What they find in those records isn’t necessarily the truth, though.

A Tribune analysis has found that dozens of San Luis Obispo County’s largest nonprofits regularly underreport fundraising costs on their federal tax forms.

National nonprofit experts say that’s a result of an industrywide expectation that organizations reporting fewer expenses are more attractive to donors."

Tags: Fundraising Costs