We have had billions of dollars coming into more than 3000 Memphis nonprofits in recent years.We have very little in the way of overall oversight of this whole segment of our economy. This becomes obvious when you realize that no list of agencies exists and the services they provide exists. Even the best of boards have no way of obtaining an overall picture of the nonprofit area without this information. We have attempted to provide a list and categories of services at www.improvememphis.org. It has become obvious that the nonprofits do not cooperate with each other and requests for them to work together or bring organization to an area in which they are one of many agencies providing the same service falls on deaf ears. It appears the only way to improve non profit efficiencyis to make their funding dependent upon their performance.These guidelinesmay be improved upon, but we need for them to be specific in detail .We hope you will review the guidelines and make them available to the nonprofits that you support.We also plan to ask foundations to followthese guidelines.Foundations may have additional guidelines, butwe would ask that ours be incorporated into theirs.

These guidelines contain the basic and specific information that we believe all donors should have in order to determine the efficiency of a particular nonprofit organization in Memphis. The most recent copy of an agencies 990 (annual tax report) is available online and may be viewed at www.guidestar.org. The 990 report gives salaries of executives and some financial information in most cases, and is provided at no cost for the basic information.

These guidelines are meant to ensure transparency, fiscal responsibility, information on programs, results achieved, percent of capacity utilized, source of funds, good record keeping, effective utilization of grants and cooperation with agencies providing the same or similar services or research. This is not to imply that all agencies are engaging in immoral or illegal activity, but simply that they have not had information on services that other agencies were engaged in.

Thank you for your interest,

Walker Uhlhorn

Founder, Improve Memphis

Proposed Guidelines for Nonprofit Performance

1. Provide the category for each different service provided by the agency. Provide the category for any research or studies being undertaken. This includes government grants as well as private grants. These are categories from our website, improvememphis.org. (See the category list below)

2. Provide a list of all employees and volunteers. Provide a list of all clients served, projects being undertaken, meetings/seminars conducted, listing those attending and other pertinent information for the particular type service provided. If providing multiple services, provide a current list of all clients served by each category. Provide the name, address and phone number of each client. Provide the date of each client contact and who made the contact. This is basic information that any well-run organization should maintain.

3. Provide information on coordination of services with other agencies in the same category, such as information regarding having one agency coordinate phone calls requesting the services and assigning the person requesting service to an appropriate agency. This could include many categories such as jobs, literacy, Christmas baskets, counseling, mentoring and tutoring to name a few.

4. Provide a current board member roster and indicate all staff/board members that are related by birth or marriage. Have an independent board that accepts responsibility for activities.

5. Provide a Current Annual Operating Budget or projection.

6. Provide a current financial statement. Provide amounts of total monthly spending for the past 12 months on a month by month basis. Provide a current figure for the agency's administrative expenses as a percentage of total revenue. Each agency must have its books audited annually. We recommend an independent audit for agencies with an operating budget over $300,000, Independent Financial Review for agencies with operating budgets between $50,000 and $300,000, or Compilation for agencies with an operating budget less than $50,000. Agencies must receive the report within 9 months of the fiscal year end and receive a clean audit opinion.

7. If funding is received primarily from a Church/Churches, Group/Groups, organization/organizations, Individual/Individuals or other non community wide funding organizations, make this information available.

8. Provide a current list of all active grants that are being utilized. Information will include the name of the granter, purpose of the grant, the amount and expiration date. Universities or large medical groups will maintain a website listing all current grants.

9. Provide a list of all documents published that include a list of other agencies or services. Utilize LINC at the library for as much of this information as is possible.

Category of Services List