John Mills explains how his nonprofit Watch Duty publishes detailed metrics like office costs and dollars per page view, going beyond standard tax forms to show donors exactly where money goes. The annual report reads like a startup monthly update.
Let's take a step back. I'm a well intentioned person who I have a wallet and you know, volunteering is one option but not everybody can do that. How do I know to give to you and not to somebody else who says all the right things to me and makes me feel pretty and invite me to the gala, etc. Etc, Etc. You and I are having a conversation saying it's a. It's nonsense. They compete with each other. They're not trying to solve the problem.
I bet it's a great question. It's something that I want to set out to solve. Right. There's a couple of things going on here at watch duty. One of them is leaving a better blueprint behind. Behind. Right. And so something we did this year in our annual report is it reads like a startup monthly update from a founder. It does not read like a bunch of pretty pictures and a bunch of nonsense and maybe some video that is a tear jerker that gets you to open your purse. What I did is I tore down our metrics well beyond what the Form 990 is, which is the nonprofit reporting form. And I really went deep. Here's how much we spend on an office zero. Here's how much it costs to operate this thing. Here's how many dollars per page view it costs. And I really went whole hog at it and just started to go extraordinarily transparent like no one ever does. Whether you're a public or private company, you got to be crazy to do what we're doing. And we're just crazy enough to try and do that and hopefully open the door and show people that we are impactful and your money actually goes really far.
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