Creating customized reports for donors is one of the most time-consuming tasks nonprofits face, but a new common reporting standard called the Impact Genome Project® (IGP) provides an alternative that could save nonprofits millions of hours, translating to $1.2 billion in annual financial savings for the nonprofit sector and increase impact philanthropy.

The Allstate Foundation, together with five of America's leading corporations are adopting the IGP platform as their standard for reporting on the results of the nonprofits who benefit from their annual corporate philanthropy.  These organizations believe an industry-wide standard should be adopted across the philanthropic community and hope other corporations will join them in driving more measurable impact in the social sector.

The IGP is the first of its kind tool in the philanthropic community using evidence and standardized taxonomies to create better data and standardized metrics to inform nonprofits and funders alike.  Despite donors asking for similar information, this was a very time-consuming process because each donor had a different form to complete and the information didn't provide learning opportunities for the nonprofits.  The result is a single scorecard report that succinctly summarizes a nonprofit's outcomes and provides benchmark data that can also help them compare their results and learn best practices from others in their sector.

Each IGP nonprofit scorecard report provides another layer of analysis on the program components or "genes" that will likely lead to desired outcomes in any given area in the social sector.

The Impact Genome Project is designed to make life easier for charities too. Recently, the Impact Genome announced a groundbreaking partnership with GuideStar®, the nonprofit sector's leading marketplace for charitable data.  Nonprofits can register for free on www.impactgenome.org and complete the IGP common report to obtain an IGP badge on their GuideStar profile. Donors who see the badge will be able to learn more about the organization's impact.

Read the full article about impact philanthropy at Cision PR Newswire.