Issues Regarding Current Nonprofit Corporate Disclosure: Eliminating the Mismatch in Accountability

Abstract

As NPOs are actors in civil society, their accountability must be fulfilled by disclosing their activities to the community. While there is a lack of disclosure that is legally required by NPOs, the establishment of the Specified Nonprofit Corporation System has been a milestone in the sense that the importance of disclosure was clearly identified. However, according to financial analysis on Specified Nonprofit Corporations in Aichi Prefecture, it is revealed that the accountability to be imposed on Specified Nonprofit Corporations is very limited, this because they receive only slight amounts of financial support from society at large. Instead, other nonprofit corporations such as Social Welfare Corporation and School Juridical Person, which are receiving large amounts of subsidies or undertaking projects from governments, should disclose their activities to the public in order to eliminate the mismatch between the need for strict accountability and the reality of poor disclosure.