Economics 191AC Economics of the Arts and Culture

Spring 2012

ACCESSING IRS FORM 990 DATA ON NONPROFITS

All tax-exempt organizations with annual gross receipts of $25,000 or more are required to file a Form 990 or Form 990-EZ with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). (Smaller organizations are now required to file a Form 990-N to confirm that they are still in operation, but they don’t have to report their revenue.) These forms are available for public perusal through Guidestar.org, a nonprofit organization that provides information about nonprofit organizations.

Step 1: Identify your 2 art museums and 2 symphonies. I suggest googling your city plus “art museum” or “orchestra.” So, for example, a search on “Rochester, NY” plus “orchestra” brings up the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Step 2: Go to guidestar.org. You will need to register on Guidestar using your e-mail address. Your organization is UCSB; usertype is personal; and industry is academic. Uncheck the boxes or Guidestar will e-mail you stuff you probably don’t want.

Step 3: In the middle of the guidestar.org homepage, under “Search Guidestar” and “Nonprofit Search,” type in the name of one of your museums/orchestras. If you’re lucky (you got the name right and it is a nonprofit), it should appear at the top of the list under “Organization Name” toward the left of the screen. If not, you may need to refine your search by clicking the appropriate state or city in the “Refine by Category” box.

Note that frequently an organization may operate under a slightly different name than it uses with the IRS. So, for example, in Sacramento, the Crocker Art Museum is listed as the “Crocker Art Museum Association” in Guidestar. There is also the “Crocker Art Museum Foundation,” which is a organization dedicated to raising money for the museum. You want the museum, not the fundraising arm. You can tell you have the fundraising arm if Guidestar lists its category as “Single Organization Support” rather than “Museum or Museum Activities.” When you get the right name, click on it.

Step 4: In the screen that comes up, select the link labeled “Forms 990.” Download the most recent Form 990. Warning: These can be *big* files, so don’t try it with a funky connection. The most recent Form 990 for the Crocker Art Museum is 2010.

Step 5: Repeat until you have Form 990s for two art museums and two symphony orchestras.

If you are having trouble with Guidestar, and your organization is in California, you can also access IRS Form 990s for many organizations through the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, http://rct.doj.ca.gov/MyLicenseVerification/Search.aspx?facility=Y. Searching is a little trickier on this site, but play around with it.

INTERPRETING THE FORM 990 DATA

For 2009 and 2010, total revenue is listed on the first page of Part I: Summary, and also in Part VIII: Statement of Revenue. Revenue details are listed in Part VIII. See if you can figure what is earned, what is contributed, and what is endowment income (hint: sales of assets go into endowment). Compensation information is provided in Additional Information; more detail is in Part VII and Schedule J, Part II: Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees, and Highest Compensated Employees. You want the total compensation, not just the base compensation, of the highest compensated employee. Oh, and find out what his/her title is, too.

[Note that the numbering system for the various parts of the Form 990 changes from year to year. For example, in 2007, Part VII was called Analysis of Income-Producing Activities, which is equivalent to Part VIII: Statement of Revenue in 2009. Compensation of employees in 2007 was in Schedule A. You may have to look around a bit to find what you need.]

Use an Excel spreadsheet to report what you find. Send one copy to me (by Sunday night if possible), and keep a hardcopy for yourself. We will be comparing notes on what we find in class on Monday.