The Accounting Review Vol. 81 No. 1 2006
Management of Financial Information in Charitable Organizations: The Case of Joint-Cost Allocations
Abstract
Charities that use direct mailings or other activities that combine a public education effort with fundraising appeals must allocate the joint costs related to these activities to programs, fundraising, and administration. This study investigates whether charities use joint-cost allocations to manage the program ratio—a widely used measure of spending efficiency. Using a hand-collected dataset of 708 organization-year observations from 1992 to 2000, we find evidence that charities use joint costs to mitigate changes in the program ratio.
- DOI
- 10.2308/accr.2006.81.1.159
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 159-178
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref