A world view: watchdogs at different global strengths. (Accountability).

Americans have voiced their opinions about a perceived lack of accountability among nonprofits, but Europeans have shown the ability to both shoot down accreditation processes and demand other seals of approval in recent years.

The International Committee of Fundraising Organizations (ICFO), a predominantly European group of charity watchdogs and monitoring groups, recently met in Dulles, Va., the first time in the United States since 1994, and addressed the challenges of monitoring nongovernmental organizations.

A disconnect of public opinion can challenge watchdog groups trying to keep a country's public informed about charities. The United Kingdom, for example, doesn't have an established accreditation process that's akin to the Council of Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance. "The country is divided on these

things," said Christopher Zealley of the Accrediting Bureau for Fundraising Organizations, who was involved in previous, failed attempts to develop British watchdog standards. "We're a very mature democracy," he said. "It's more important not to interfere than to be a busy body. It's not my view."

Chris Brearley is researching the British sector for the Charities Aid Foundation, trying to find what level of acceptability for an accreditation process exists. One of the things he's found is people prefer "league tables," ranking organizations by "efficiency." In a country where more than half the population give to at most one cause and only 10 percent give to more than three causes, some have said Great Britain is in a giving crisis.

Brearley disagreed with the assessment, though he acknowledged concern. "There's a considerable opportunity as well," he said. "We just haven't done any in-depth analysis of what people think of their giving."

As for the potential growth of the British nonprofit sector, Zealley said the strength of the sector is its growth from small beginnings. "(Britons believe) it's more important that that's preserved than (going after) scalawags who are criminals."

Paul Nelson, executive director of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, based in Winchester, Va., said that with so many different methods of rankings charities and their costs conducted by watchdog groups and the media, it's no wonder the American public gets confused.

Where England failed in the past, Austria has recently established a new seal of approval for charities. After a 1998 scandal at Worldvision Osterreich, the Austrian Institute for Fundraising Organizations developed a series of standards related to fundraising documentation and information from charities, as well as the seal.

Burkhard Wilke, ICFO's secretary general and head of the German Central Institute for Social Issues, said there were strengths and weaknesses to the Austrian seal approval process. While its process has quick implementation, low development costs and general acceptance by organizations, its weaknesses include compliance that cannot be completely verified by external accounting.

The Netherlands has had a seal signifying charities that meet the standards of Stichting Centraal Bureau Fondsenwerving. In the Netherlands, organizations have to submit annual reports as well as budgets. While in Norway there are no reporting requirements on charities.

The ICFO also listened to the challenges of "oversubscription" to campaigns, inspired by the overwhelming response to the relief effort following the September 11 attacks. "You can't have oversubscription without a concept of restricted (gifts)," said Chip Watkins, an attorney with Washington, D.C., firm Webster, Chamberlain & Bean. In the past, if a campaign exceeded its goal, an institution, such as a university or large nonprofit hospital, had little trouble assigning the "extra money" to other issues it had.

"We're familiar with restricted gifts in the large donor context," Watkins said. "But in this case, even though the problem has always existed, (it may be the first time we've seen) a very visceral reaction in this area of restricted contributions."

Maj. George Hood, national public affairs director for the Salvation Army in Alexandria, Va., said that mailings that went out around the date of the unforeseen disaster met some donors who assumed their gifts would be used for attack-related relief. He explained that it was sometimes impossible to know what donors intended, and the rapid pace of response necessitated quick decisions about all sorts of gifts.

For example, Hood said that in the first 12 hours after the terrorist attacks, he handled $20 million in donations of cash and in-kind services over the telephone. When its Web server crashed, Yahoo! offered to help. "Within 48 hours we had 25,000 commercial sites (involved in giving to Salvation Army), ... many of which were companies we'd never allow (to be involved in a SA campaign)," he said sheepishly.

Art Taylor, chief executive officer of the Council of Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance in Alexandria, Va., said that while organizations may not have been restricted legally about how to use unrestricted (even unsolicited) gifts related to the terror attacks, they were faced with incredible responsibilities relative to the court of public opinion.