How does Benefacts get data on individual nonprofits’ finances?

The financial data that forms the basis of Benefacts’ analysis is derived from the public disclosures of Irish nonprofits.

The law requires different kinds of nonprofits to file a set of financial statements with their respective regulators and registrars. These include:

• the Companies Registration Office (companies, friendly and industrial societies, trade unions, cooperatives)
• the Library of the Houses of the Oireachtas (charter bodies)
• the Standards in Public Office Commission (political parties)
• the Charities Regulator (charities)

All of these public regulatory authorities, except the Charities Regulator, publish the financial statements they receive on their public websites which is where Benefacts sources them under the provisions of open data regulations.

Benefacts does not re-use the data which nonprofits publish on their own websites.

Once they have been published, Benefacts reviews and manually extracts financial, governance and narrative data from financial statements, stores this in its database and deploys it in various ways.

The most recent source documents are republished on benefacts.ie and a summary regulatory, governance and financial analysis is provided in Benefacts’ listing for each nonprofit.

Last updated 21 May 2020.

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