Charities face the costly task of complying with the registration requirements of every state in which they are active. The process can cost as much as $25,000 in staff research and application preparation time, as well as fees. State charity regulators themselves spend more than 50% of their budget on collecting and managing data. This hampers their ability to fight fraud and keep pace with the dramatic increase in charitable solicitation activity.
NASCONet is a public-private collaboration between the National Association of State Charities Officials (NASCO) and Philanthropic Research, Inc., also known as GuideStar. NASCONet will be a web-based system that will provide a common repository of information collected by state charity regulators and a one-stop online registration process for charities.
NASCONet will replace fragmented systems with a single efficient on-line solution with five major components: (1) a secure, web-based data gathering interface, (2) a document gathering system, (3) a document repository, (4) a public website, and (5) a private NASCO member-only website.
This project is particularly timely for two important reasons. First, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks have increased the need to improve the effectiveness of charity oversight in order to prevent the diversion of charitable funds to terrorist activities. Second, since the Internet transcends state boundaries, every charity with a website or e-mail will soon be required to register in every state, and state charity offices will be faced with an avalanche of paperwork.
