What are the parameter through which I can judge whether a charitable organization is genuine or not?

Question

I am asked to list a few charitable organizations (NGO's) for a corporate doantion from my company. What are the parameters/data should I collect to verify that that donation is going in the right hands?

Answer 1

The organization, if it's in the USA, should be listed at http://www.guidestar.org; if it's not, it's not for real. I've got links to other countries' versions of guidestar at:

http://www.coyotecommunications.com/volu...

The organization should also provide to you:

-- the history and mission of the organization

-- the financial report of its most recent fiscal year

-- statistics showing how many people this organization serves, what impact they have on the community, etc.

-- impact statements/testimonials about the organization's work

-- names of board members

-- name and credentials of Executive Director, and other key staff as appropriate

-- how the organization involves volunteers (involving volunteers shows that the organization allows members of the community to come in and see what the organization does first hand)

-- letters of recommendation from OTHER organizations or city or state officials, and/or copies of newspaper articles that profile the organization's work

-- a proposal for what they want to use a donation from your company

This is all BASIC information. 90% of it are things the organization should have in hand ready to hand out at a moment's notice. A nonprofit that doesn't have most of these items ready for review is, IMO, not well-run.

Remember that nonprofits have to pay rent on their facilities, pay staff to do their jobs, etc. Please don't punish an organization for having administrative costs -- paying for, say, a copy machine does NOT take money away from those a charity serves. In fact, it may allow an organization to serve even more people.

Answer 2

How much per dollar is going directly to the people it's supposed to help.  (if not above $.90 then don't donate).

How long has the charity been around and how much information is available about it. (Be wary of new charities)

Which charity relates the most to your company (are you looking to help kids, animals, health research???)

These are just a few things I would look at.  Good luck, hope you pick a great charity!!!

Answer 3

The first poster has some great ideas so I won't elaborate on those. But, to make sure it's genuine, every charity has to have a registered charity number. I don't know where you live, but for example in Canada you go to the CRA website and they have a 15-digit number for all 83,000 registered charities in the country. I'm sure the US has something like this as well that you could look at. If it's not registered, I wouldn't donate.

Answer 4

You can also check out http://www.charitynavigator.org/ which looks at the IRS form 990 that all non profits have to submit yearly.  They evaluate a couple of key performance indicators, the most imporant of which is the ratio of money donated to money applied to the program.   In other words, if you give them $100 - how much goes to the charity or NGO's work, versus how much goes to overhead / administration / salaries / fundraising / etc.  90% is a laudable goal, but there are some NGOs that approach 95%.  There are also those that barely hit 75%.

The organization in question should also produce an annual report that describes their activities - and the *RESULTS* of those activities.  Some organizations throw money at a problem but never evaluate the success of the individual projects they fund - and while that may be applicable for some groups (and NGOs do come to mind), it's tough to justify that for private funds.  For example, let's say you were going to promote...democracy in the third world.  How would you judge success?  It may take years for any change to be seen, and you may *never* see it - and even if you did, how could you attribute it to your donation?  You can't, but that's the nature of NGO's to begin with in large part.