Peripheral Benefit of Single Audit Monitoring in Attracting Charitable Donations

Abstract

Our study examines whether the presence of a Single Audit is positively associated with charitable donations. A Single Audit offers incremental monitoring benefits beyond a basic financial audit. Specifically, it includes additional audit procedures and publicly disclosed reporting on internal controls over financial reporting and on compliance over major programs. In an entropy-balanced sample of 44,364 observations over the period 2010 to 2016, we find that charities subject to a Single Audit receive higher donations, regardless of whether the audit reveals internal control deficiencies. We find similar results when donors are more sophisticated, but not when they are less sophisticated. Finally, our results show donors differentiate between clean and unclean audit findings when deficiencies are defined more strictly as material weaknesses only. Policymakers, charities, and other stakeholders should be interested in the finding that Single Audits, often viewed for their costs, also yield a peripheral monitoring benefit by attracting donations. Data Availability: All data are from publicly available sources quoted in the text. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; M48.