Financial and Non-Financial Information in Performance Assessment of Public Benefit Organizations

Non-governmental organisations are aware that their successes in fulfilling social missions depend on support received from individual and institutional donors. In order to obtain external funding it is necessary to inform potential supporters about the performance of an organisation and efficiency in using its resources. The paper aims at diagnosing whether obligatory annual statements, and in particular financial and non-financial information they carry as well as the interplay between those two, may facilitate communication between organisations and their donors. An analysis of 177 annual reports of public benefit organisations (PBOs) and the results of an experiment supported by 59 participants proved relevance of information characterising social and economic effects of PBOs. It should be pointed out that the decisions of potential donors appeared to be conditioned by the perception of resources matching social goals along with effects adequate to resources and cost incurred. Finally, the relevance of information carried by the sets of specialised ratios was confirmed