Thank you very much for your interest and dedication to financial transparency. On June 1, 2022, VOTF will begin our sixth annual financial transparency review, which will conclude on August 31, 2022. To help you improve your website’s financial transparency and your score, our reviewers suggest doing the following:
- Make sure your website’s search feature works and brings up your website’s internal pages and not just news articles, blog posts and employment notices.
- Have only one finance page labeled ‘finance’ where all financial information is posted.
- Include a currently dated Diocesan Finance Council membership list. An example could be a list of names showing each member’s credentials and terms of office and labeled, ‘Diocesan Finance Council Members as of xx-xx-2022’.
- Post a current and audited financial statement. Financial summaries do not include the auditor’s letter nor the footnotes, which are an integral part of the audit. Posting audited financial reports is the hallmark of financial transparency and adds 25 points out of 100 to your score.
- Post consistent financial policies and procedures in one document. Remove vague and contradictory verbiage within the same document and links to outdated documents.
- Post consistent offertory best practices, which require the collection be placed only in tamper-evident bags immediately after Mass, regardless if counted right away, and counted by at least three unrelated individuals. If you require three collection counters or tamper-evident bags:
- Use “must” or “will” in your policy statement.
- Avoid the word “should,” which indicates that the procedures are optional.
If you have any questions, contact our the VOTF office at office@votf.org. We will be happy to assist you up until the beginning of this year’s review on June 1, 2022.