The importance of accountability for the relationship between governance and performance of UK charities

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationships between governance characteristics of a sample of 200 UK non-profit organizations (NPOs) and their performance, considered as their ability to collect financial resources. With a regression analysis we verify strong positive relationships between the NPOs’ financial performance and the CEO duality and board size. Further analyses show that if the charities increase their level of accountability through the use of additional voluntary disclosure mechanisms and tools such as the use of social networks, these relationships are confirmed. Qualitative characteristics of governance and voluntary accountability of UK charities are also analysed using different statistical methods. The results of our research could be useful both for the policy makers of third sectors and for the managers of NPOs that have some suggestions to support the development and to increase the performance of the actors of non-profit sectors.