BoardEffect White Paper: Board Portals Can Ease the Stress of the New IRS Form 990

      In the wake of scandals related to the misappropriation of funds and other dubious activities in the nonprofit world, the IRS issued a revised Form 990. The changes were designed to increase nonprofits' transparency and accountability by requiring the disclosure of more information related to donations, compensation, and board governance. The impact for nonprofit organizations may be: increased cost and effort at audit time.

      Effective on fiscal years beginning on or after January 1, 2008, the new IRS Form 990 requires staff and board members to become more "hands on" completing the form as they provide evidence of how policies, such as the Conflict of Interest Statement, were implemented. Now is the time for nonprofits to explore solutions to facilitate the collection and organization of internal information related to the new IRS Form 990.  Board portals - such as BoardEffect^® - are a viable solution.

      A board portal is a secure website developed specifically for boards of directors that can assist nonprofits in successfully fulfilling the requirements of the new Form 990.  Here are five examples of how board portals address the requirements of the new Form 990.

1. Keeping records associated with "changes to organizational documents, policies and procedures governing chapters"

      Most board portals offer space where Board Manual documents can be uploaded and stored indefinitely. When uploaded, a document is automatically dated and users of the portal are notified. Board members have ready access to important policy documents via the web - so they never have to "scramble" to locate the most recent versions of printed policy documents.

2. Documentation of meetings and actions

      Online Meeting Books (meeting materials for board meetings) provide board members with a simple way to locate meeting minutes, board agendas, committee reports, and other files related to the board's work.  Board secretaries and portal administrators can post meeting information and documents well in advance of the upcoming meeting to give board members more time to prepare.   Additionally, the portal records and archives the title, date, and time of each meeting and its associated materials.

3. Governing body review of Form 990

      Board portals provide secure space - such as a Resource Library - where 990 forms and other documents can be uploaded and accessed by board members.  As the organization prepares its annual form, the board can review the sections pertaining to its work for accuracy. In addition, e-governance tools such as BoardEffect® offer educational resources for board members to assist them with getting the organization up to standard prior to submitting the form 990.  For example, a robust toolkit containing over 240 sample policy documents - such as Conflict of Interest and Codes of Ethics - provides helpful guidance.

4. Addresses of officers, directors, etc.

      Board portals make compiling a Directory of board member contact information a simple task.  Board members can each update their own user profiles, including company and personal addresses.  The information can be exported in a variety of formats and attached to the form 990.

5. Enforcement of conflicts policy

      E-governance tools offer board members secure online space to facilitate, record, and track discussions on a variety of issues.  Discussion Forums and Live Talk tools help board members deliberate on issues such as potential conflicts of interest they may be facing.  In addition to recording the exchanges, the portal captures the date/s that the discussions occur, and the discussion title.  All of these details can be easily retrieved when preparing the form 990 to provide a concrete record of how the organization's Conflict of Interest Policy was actually applied.

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