Info-biorhythm: a notion to better grasp the informational strength, discipline and health of SGOs when it comes to making their key reporting documents public
A funder weighing a grant, a partner preparing an agreement, a journalist checking a claim: each wants a current picture of the organization. Its annual report tells what it does, for whom, with which people and to what effect: activities, teams, results and impact. Its audited financial statements show the resources behind that work. Made public in the spring, these documents describe a year that is still fresh; made public in the autumn, a year already well behind.
thedotgood calls this timing info-biorhythm: how many days after its fiscal year-end a Social Good Organization (SGO) makes its annual report and its audited financial statements public, and how steady that rhythm is from one year to the next. It is one dimension of thedotgood’s Informational Health Check of SGOs, which looks at what an organization makes public, how complete it is, and when: not what an SGO achieves, but how soon it lets others see it.
Why thedotgood measures info-biorhythm
Most organizations publish these documents at some point. Few say when, and hardly anyone compares. Yet timing tells a reader something the documents alone do not: whether an organization’s reporting keeps pace with its work, and how current the picture is that donors, partners and the public rely on to understand its social profit, in the full sense of the term.
Comparing SGOs within one country, under the same law and the same reporting calendar, makes that timing readable. Each edition sets a national benchmark, names the fastest, and shows where every SGO in the panel stands.
Info-biorhythm editions
How each edition is built
- Panel. SGOs ranked by thedotgood for which thedotgood could establish, from public evidence, when both the audited financial statements and the annual report for the same fiscal year were first made public. At least 25 SGOs, or no edition.
- Dates. SGOs rarely print a publication date on these documents; an auditor’s signature date is not one. thedotgood establishes when each document first went public through its own research and regular inspections of each SGO’s website: the date the document appeared there, the file’s own date on the public copy, or its first capture by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. A document cannot be public before it exists or is signed, so the latest of these dates applies.
- Sources. SGOs also share data and files with thedotgood directly. Editions use only the date each document first appeared on the SGO’s official website or public channel; copies sent privately and later re-postings do not count.
- Figures. Days after the fiscal year-end, read on the last complete fiscal year. Medians, not averages: one late publisher does not tilt them.
- What it does not say. Speed is not quality. A fast report can be thin, and a later one thorough. The benchmark measures when documents became public; it does not score them.
- What it signals. When an SGO makes its key documents public late, compared with its peers or with its own past rhythm, thedotgood flags it as a negative signal in its monitoring of that SGO.
What comes next
Each edition is dated and stays online, so the rhythm can be followed year after year. The USA edition is in preparation; other countries follow once at least 25 SGOs ranked by thedotgood qualify.
An SGO in a panel that finds a date it can improve on can send thedotgood the public link where the document first appeared.