December 11, 2006

Follow The Leader

The Tennessean posted an interesting story on its website Monday morning - State offers data online about charities' records - which tells readers how to access the financial reports that charities are required to file with the goverment. The state Division of Charitable Solicitations and Gaming, an office within the Secretary of State's office, is making the reports available online for charities that solicit contributions in Tennessee.

You have to wonder if the story on the newspaper's website was motivated by this blog post by former Tennessean investigative reporter Trent Seibert, who know works for WKRN. In that post, Seibert not only gave readers information about how to access the financial reports for charities, called Form 990s, he also gave a lesson in how to use them, using Vanderbilt University's Form 990 as the example.