990 Form: How Some Nonprofits Perform above Their Budget Grade

Case Study: The Nonprofit Quarterly invited readers to describe ways in which they were able to cut costs within their organizations while also improving upon their work, and anchored the responses to the Statement of Functions page of the Form 990 that all nonprofits must complete for the IRS. This special insert includes a blank form that you can use to explore your own cost-saving opportunities.

Form 990 worksheet: Included in this download is an IRS Form 990, where nonprofits are required to report their expenditures in a list of twenty-four categories. We inserted some of our own suggestions (note that we ignored items not relevant to cost-saving strategies); we also anchored to that graphic readers’ responses selected as best exemplifying items from that list. Finally, we included a clean Form 990 so that you can write in where you think you can cut costs. Have at it!