Singapore to make financial statements of all charities available online

Singapore will soon make the financial statements of all charity organizations available on an official Charity Portal shortly, the Office of the Commissioner of Charities said on Wednesday. This is part of the changes in regulations made by the Commissioner of Charities to better protect charities and donors following the Charities Act Amendment Bill that was passed in parliament in 2010. Now all externally-audited charities, including all charities set up as companies, and all other charities with annual income or expenditure over 500,000 Singapore dollars (393,701 U.S. dollars), will have to post a summary of their financial information online on the Charity Portal. A new Charity Portal will be rolled out in the second half of 2013, the Commissioner of Charities said. There are now measures in place to better manage the conduct of commercial and third-party fund-raisers and commercial participators. A commercial fund-raiser is required to declare its identity as a commercial entity. Charities are also required to indicate in brochures and websites the proportion of the proceeds raised that will be for charitable purposes. Commercial fund-raisers need a written agreement with their beneficiary charity on the fund-raiser's fees and the time frame within which the proceeds much be transferred to the charity. The office said that a record 1 billion Singapore dollars (787 million U.S. dollars) in donations were collected in 2012, up 12 percent from the 896 million Singapore dollars (706 million U.S. dollars) in 2011.