It’s that special time of year again when I get to boast about our exciting IRS Form 990 and our “clean” audit opinion.
Let’s start with the audit. For 2019, we have received again the “unqualified” opinion from our auditors: “In our opinion…present fairly…” For those of you who did not study accounting, that’s the good one. Most people don’t find this exciting. It’s certainly not as exciting as a “qualified” opinion, which has language like “except for” and ends with one or more executive level “resignations” and a front-page news story.
An unqualified opinion suggests that the accounting staff is doing its job properly with the right oversight and that the board knows what’s going on. Again, not exciting, but we really wouldn’t want it any other way.
Now Form 990 really is exciting, if you know how to read it. It is filled with fascinating tidbits. A few highlights:
- Fundraising costs as a percentage of total revenues: <11%. This is very good and worth highlighting.
- Forty-five dedicated members of the board of directors.
- We have a conflict-of-interest policy, a whistleblower policy, and a document-retention policy.
- We maintain 45 donor-advised funds.
- We own our building and invest in State of Israel Bonds
- We list pages of organizations that have each received funds in excess of $5,000 from us, either from our donor-advised funds or from our allocations process.
- As part of his compensation package, your CEO does not receive a maid, chauffeur, or chef. (Yes, that’s actually on the form.)
- Federation has a real estate committee to review proposed gifts of real estate.
These documents will both be posted on our website. If you have any questions, please let me know.
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