Platinum Seal allows donors to focus on progress and results

The Community Foundation of Northern Illinois (CFNIL) this month earned the 2020 Platinum Seal of Transparency, the highest level of recognition offered by GuideStar, a service of Candid. By sharing metrics that highlight progress CFNIL is making toward its mission, the organization is helping donors move beyond simplistic ways of nonprofit evaluation such as overhead ratios.

"In accordance with our long-held belief in being transparent about our work,” said Dan Ross, CFNIL President, “we are excited to convey our organization’s results in a user-friendly and highly visual manner. By updating our GuideStar Nonprofit Profile to the Platinum level, we can now easily share up-to-date organizational metrics with our supporters as well as GuideStar's immense online audience, which includes donors, grantmakers, our peers, and the media."

To reach the Platinum level, CFNIL added extensive information to its Nonprofit Profile on GuideStar: basic contact and organizational information; in-depth financial information; qualitative information about goals, strategies, and capabilities; and quantitative information about results and progress toward 4 its mission. By taking the time to provide this information, CFNIL has demonstrated its commitment to transparency and to giving donors and funders meaningful data to evaluate nonprofit performance. View the the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois' up-to-date GuideStar profile: https://www.guidestar.org/profile/36-4402089

About the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois: The mission of the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois is to serve as a catalyst for giving in order to attract, preserve, and grow an endowment for current and future needs of Northern Illinois. Since its founding in 1953 CFNIL has granted more than $73 million for charitable purposes. Learn more about CFNIL’s grantmaking and commitment to endowment at cfnil.org.

About GuideStar Nonprofit Profiles: In February 2019, GuideStar joined forces with Foundation Center to form Candid, a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Today, GuideStar is a service of Candid. The GuideStar database contains a profile for every tax-exempt nonprofit registered with the IRS. The profiles are populated with information directly from nonprofits, the IRS, and other partners in the nonprofit sector. Candid encourages every nonprofit to claim and update its profile at no cost to the organization. Updating allows nonprofits to share a wealth of up-to-date information with the more than 13 million people who visit guidestar.org to learn more about nonprofit organizations each year. Updating also allows nonprofits to share information with the more than 200 philanthropic websites and applications that are powered by GuideStar data, such as AmazonSmile, Facebook, and Network for Good. To reach a given participation level, organizations must complete all required fields for that level. The GuideStar participation levels, acknowledged as symbols of transparency in the nonprofit sector, are displayed on all updated participants' profiles in the GuideStar database. 

About Candid: Every year, millions of nonprofits spend trillions of dollars around the world. Candid finds out where that money comes from, where it goes, and why it matters. Through research, collaboration, and training, Candid connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to do it. Candid’s data tools on nonprofits, foundations, and grants are the most comprehensive in the world. Find out more at candid.org and on Twitter @CandidDotOrg.