There are more than two million nonprofits operating in the United States — roughly one for every 135 Americans. As the season of giving ramps up, how can you feel confident that your dollars will be spent responsibly? “If you find yourself considering a gift to charity that called you on the phone, you’ve already lost most of the battle to do as much good as possible,” writes Elie Hassenfeld, co-founder and co-executive director of GiveWell, an organization that highlights a few of the most effective nonprofits. “If you wait for charities to come to you, you’re just rewarding the ones that are most aggressive — not the ones that do the most good.” Read on to learn how you can avoid donor’s remorse.
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Tag: GuideStar
The Giving Guide: 5 Things to Ask Before Donating to a Charity (And 5 Things That Shouldn’t Discourage You)
It’s no wonder that Americans are known as the most generous people in the world. In 2012, Americans donated more than $316 billion to charity, 3.5 percent more than they did the year before — and nearly three-quarters of the money that went to public nonprofits came from individual donors.
But while many Americans are eager to support their cause, with 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States alone, it’s not always clear which organization deserves to receive their money. To help figure it out, NationSwell talked to Jennifer Chandler, vice president and director of network support and knowledge sharing at the National Council of Nonprofits, a resource and advocate for America’s charitable nonprofits. Of course, the first thing you should consider is whether the nonprofit is fiscally responsible, she says. But beyond that, Chandler outlines five other key questions to ask before choosing a charity, as well as five “problems” that shouldn’t dissuade you from giving.
MORE: Finally, a One-Stop Shop for Charity Research
Things to Ask Before Donating
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Things That Shouldn’t Discourage You From Donating
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“There’s no better way to feel good about your gift than to get to know the charitable organization as well as you can,” Chandler says. That means making informed donations by doing your research first, and focusing on a charity’s overall performance — including transparency, governance and results — instead of just one or two things, like overhead or fundraising costs. By following the 10 tips above, we hope that you’ll be even more inspired to support the nonprofits that are working hard to move this country, and others, forward.
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Finally, a One-Stop Shop for Charity Research
Not all charities are created equal. That became abundantly clear for reporters at the Tampa Bay Times, who spent the better part of the past year investigating “America’s Worst Charities” in partnership with The Center for Investigative Reporting. So at the behest of readers, who expressed overwhelming concern about where their charitable donations were going, the Times and the CIR teamed up to create an online tool that makes charity research a little easier. Charity Checker is the first website that aggregates ratings and reviews from some of the most prominent online watchdogs — BBB Wise Giving Alliance, CharityNavigator, GreatNonprofits and GuideStar — and publishes the results in one place. While not every one of the 1.6 million charities in the U.S. are included, most of America’s largest and most popular causes are covered, giving citizens a starting point for making informed decisions about how to donate their money.
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In today’s connected world, it’s too easy to be duped by charities that actually do very little to help the causes they claim to support. “We learned that it’s sometimes extremely difficult to tell the good charities from the bad,” Chris Davis, investigations editor for the Tampa Bay Times, wrote in a piece introducing Charity Checker. “Some of the nation’s most wasteful charities pick names that mimic popular organizations. Others use accounting gimmicks to overstate the good they’re doing.”
So how can you prevent giving to fraudulent causes? One way is through research, although, many citizens don’t have the time to spend hours pouring over an organization’s financial statements or investigating a charity’s board members, nor do they know what red flags to look for. Charity Checker does some of the work for you, by posting a “Donor Advisory” on charities that are flagged in negative news stories or are on the Times-CIR list of the 50 Worst Charities. Users can also click through from Charity Checker to original data sources to read more in-depth analyses from watchdog groups, or contribute their own experiences on GreatNonprofits to help shift the conversation. It may not be perfect, but Charity Checker is an easy-to-use tool that was a long-time coming. Hopefully, the more people use it to research the causes they want to support, the easier it will be to direct your dollars to the causes you care about.
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