January 7, 2021 | By Michael H. Babcock
Platinum Seal allows donors to focus on progress and results
Portage Health Foundation earned the 2020 Platinum Seal of Transparency, the highest level of recognition offered by GuideStar. By sharing metrics that highlight progress, Portage Health Foundation (PHF) is making toward its mission to positively influence a healthier community through enhanced philanthropy and collaboration. The organization is helping donors move beyond simplistic ways of nonprofit evaluation such as overhead ratios.
“We’re happy with receiving Guidestar’s highest rating for financial reporting and transparency,” PHF Executive Director Kevin Store said. “In addition, this rating is based on internal controls and procedures that reflect the foundation's commitment to managing these resources with integrity and in the best interest of our community. All of their rating criteria is intended to give assurances to would-be donors that the organization is fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and has other administrative processes in place to ensure the organization is functioning at a high level.”
To reach the Platinum level, PHF 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 its mission. By taking the time to provide this information, Portage Health Foundation has demonstrated its commitment to transparency and to giving donors and funders meaningful data to evaluate nonprofit performance.
You can see PHF’s profile in the guidestar database at guidestar.org. Learn more Portage Health Foundation’s commitment to transparency at phfgive.org/transparency.
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.
