How Do You Check A Charity Before You Donate?

Unscrupulous fundraisers, especially for-profit telemarketers and direct mail companies, can and will say almost anything to get you to part ways with your hard-earned dollars because they often take a huge cut off the top of whatever you donate.

“It’s actually so easy to conduct highly exploitative and harmful activities as a charity fund-raiser, without breaking the law at all,” said Laurie Styron, the executive director of the watchdog group Charity Watch.” – The New York Times

However, even “legitimate,” but highly inefficient charities may waste your donations on excessive overhead, leaving very little left over to be spent on the programs you were intending to support. Online databases that publish ratings on thousands of charities based on simplistic automation and crowdsourcing often do more harm than good and sometimes cause donors to give to the very charities they were trying to avoid.

So what’s a donor to do? Read on for some practical tips and steps you can take to identify worthy charities to support.