Guidestar seeks worldwide platform

Finance | 29 Jan 2008

The organisation behind GuideStar International has launched a mapping exercise to assess the 'GuideStar readiness' of countries around the world. Civil Society Systems, has been operating in the UK since 2004 and formally registered as a charity in June this year with the aim of developing public databases of charities throughout the world. Although independent of GuideStar, the organisation has a close working relationship with GuideStar UK and its chief executive is Buzz Schmidt, the founder of GuideStar in the US.

Caroline Neligan, director of programmes at CSS said the map of 'GuideStar readiness' should be completed in the first quarter of 2007 and will allow CSS to 'understand the state of play worldwide'. 'We'll be asking questions to do with the culture of philanthropy in a country, how large civil society is, what the relationship between government and civil society in a country is, the availability of data on civil society in that country and where it is held,' she said.

CSS is working to launch GuideStar systems in India, South Africa, South Korea, Hungary and Germany and expects to launch websites in some of these countries in 2007. According to Neligan the development phase of a GuideStar system costs about £50,000 and can take between six months and a year. Once it is in place the country will pay CSS a £25,000 licence fee for hosting and managing the system, which will have estimated operating costs of £150,000.

Adrian Sargeant, professor of philanthropy at the Indiana Centre for Philanthropy in the US, said: 'In most countries such investment would be a complete waste of time. As in the UK, the overwhelming majority of donors just aren't interested in published accounts and wouldn't have the knowledge to interpret them, even if they were. If grantmaking trusts and governments want to make a difference to giving they would do better to invest money in identifying how the biggest uplift in philanthropy could be achieved. I can pretty much guarantee that it won't be through the provision of yet another GuideStar.'

Directory: GuideStar International

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