Public companies were the intended targets of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but more and more non-profits are embracing the reforms as well.

A Grant Thornton study has found that 87 percent of non-profit organizations have adopted new governance policies, compared with just 20 percent in 2003. Ninety-two percent have adopted new accounting policies and procedures, up significantly from the 59 percent who reporting doing so last year.

The change might be attributed to the influence of corporate executives who sit on the boards of non-profit groups, according to this CFO.com article.

As early as 2003, the MACPA profiled Maryland non-profits that were adopting some of the Sarbanes-Oxley reforms, and that practice obviously has become more popular in the years since.

But CFO.com’s Sarah Johnson raises some interesting questions about the speed at which non-profits are embracing the reforms. Should we apply the same expectation of transparency to non-profits that we’ve already applied to public companies?