U.S. non-profit groups have to file a 990 form to the IRS, open to the public.
Long ago, I used to have this vision of making a worldwide civic
movement called by one simple word: "Accountability".
I thought this
over-arching concept would make links among movements that had become
very separate, bureaucratized, and even hostile to one another, whether concerned with human
rights, democracy, social justice, environment or natural resources.
All the basic civil rights of freedom of expression and freedom of
assembly would naturally be the basis for such a movement, that would
not have to play the game of never taking a political position (when in
fact it was taking them all the time) because it would not be strictly
mandated by law in one country or morality contingent on this or that religion, but based on
a kind of civic responsibility that is hard to capture sometimes by
literal references to rights or morals. In this vision I had,
Accountability would never fund-raise or collect donations and spend money, and thus have no need to become
mired in financial, tax, and registration problems. It would try to frame the issues, and take action where needed.
I thought Accountability was a great idea, because you could pick as
much or as little of it as you were prepared to handle at your level —
if you could call entire nations to account on their torture overseas
or at home with media access and skilled lawyers and doctors, and you would
of course seek resources to accomplish this, but as an independent entity subscribing to the overall principles of
Accountability, and using this network like you would use Wikipedia or Facebook to find information and connections. If all you could do was to get your arbitrary landlord
in your neighbourhood to be fair to the poor, then you’d do that much — with help from whatever you took from Accountability — with whatever people gave.
You could enter the stream at any level, and swim as deep or as long as
you wished — or merely remain a well-wisher on the banks.
Of course,
this dream was from a different era, and I suppose is typical of people from the
1960s or 1970s who look for globalistic solutions. It’s hardly
practical, but I still think it’s a useful idea to look for ideals to
create social movements that develop a sturdy capacity to address real
social and political problems that do not yield so readily to hortatory
references to rights or morals. You want a teenager not to seek an
abortion and you exhort her not to, and yet, what was your plan for
funding the raising of this child? You wanted a woman to leave her
abusive husband and invoke women’s rights to seek an order of
protection, but what was your plan to support her now that she lost her
sole source of income, her spouse? The ways to seek accountability in
these situations aren’t so instantly clear, our role as moralizers or rights defenders are more clear than our remedies, but it seems to me that you
could begin to organize around certain principles — accepting
responsiblity, paying as you go, helping the poor, volunteering your
time — ingredients that are needed in any NGO, but aren’t really
themselves so studied as methods to avoid what happens in so many poor
countries, especially those ravaged by war — taking up arms, using
violence, stealing, pillaging, rape as a way of life.