Accountability In Nonprofit Organizations

a. Accountability

Accountability is one of the standards society can base their trust on. The term is often associated with the checks and balances of the organization. However, the main questions that arise are who and what an organization is accountable for, and how the mechanism of accountability works. An organization may be regarded as accountable for a) a proper use of money i.e. fiscal accountability); b) following proper procedures (whether an organization is acting in accordance with its constitution) i.e. process accountability; c) the quality of its work i.e. program accountability); and d) relevance or appropriateness of work (providing the “right” services) i.e. accountability for priorities (Leat, 1990). Diana Leat (Leat, 1990)

It means “openness” of an organization’s system and decision-making process to external observers. The judgment criterion a society has towards the nonprofit sector is how transparent an organization is financially and information-wise. Some of the debates about transparency overlap with those of legitimacy and accountability. There is a common suspicion that many groups fail to be transparent either in their use of resources, decision making and governance. Thus the fear is that they are run as individual or even family businesses if they are small or self seeking bureaucracies if they are big. In some countries legal frameworks ensure some degree of transparency through, for example, published audited accounts, publicly available annual reports, and listings of senior staff and board members, which are increasingly common but in other countries these actions are just the representation of a good will of a number of nonprofit organizations. The debate about transparency also includes not only the desire of a sector to be transparent but also the means used to communicate to the public. The two – good will and means - have to go together in order to reach the aim and stand for the standard, that will allow society to trust the

Since moral aspect of the topic is touched it is important to bring the example of type of organization that radically contradicts the concept of cohesion – the terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. The phenomena of Al Qaeda is still being studied and there is still big debate among government representatives, intelligence and academic circles over the nature of organization – whether it is monolithic international organization with strong command and control or more amorphous movement that are loosely connected by transnational constituencies? an ideology or an army? an international crime enterprise or a populist transnational movement? (Hoffman, 2003). In spite of lack of consensus over what Al Qaeda actually is one thing is obvious - irrespective of legitimacy of the struggle, the politically motivated killing of civilians is terrorism. The notion that lies at the opposite end of social cohesion, furthermore, it represents the deformed way of cohesion that society might form. Many times radical Islam is confused with Muslim world and as a result of unleashed violence wearing grab of religion the vast majority of Muslims suffer tremendously as well (Gunaratna, 2002). Thus ethical and moral side of the work of the non-profit sector determines whether it assists or harms the process of social