Charity scams are one of the fastest growing areas of consumer fraud. To avoid getting taken advantage of, use these tips to carefully evaluate charities. Make an impact today by searching online to find a legitimate charity and make a donation.
When you take the time to research and select a reputable charity, you not only protect your hard-earned money from scams, but also ensure your contributions go towards meaningful causes. You can make a genuine and positive difference.
Research The Charity
When properly used, the internet can be a great resource. You should definitely use it to research any charity you’re interested in making a donation to. For starters, check out the organization’s website. Look at the people who are running the charity. Do you know who they are? Do have a history of scandals or shady behavior?
You should also search for any complaints or news articles about your chosen charity. See if they have made any headlines for the wrong reasons. Check if anyone else claims to have been scammed by the organization.
Figure Out Where Your Money Goes
Any legitimate charity will publish a record of their spending. It might matter to you, for example, whether your donation is actually going towards scientific research to cure cancer or just towards NFL players wearing pink armbands in October to “raise awareness.” Those are two very different things your money is being spent on.
Be Mindful How You Pay
Most legitimate charities accept payment in only one of two ways – credit card or cheque. If a charity wants a donation in cash, through a wire transfer or via a store gift card, that should raise a large red flag. You should never be making a charitable donation by sending someone a Walmart gift card, for example. Trust us.
Ask Questions
If you’re planning to donate money, then you have every right to ask some questions of that charity. Legitimate and worthwhile charities will welcome your questions and dutifully answer them. Some questions you should consider asking include how much of your donation will go towards “overhead and fundraising.”
Watch Online Solicitations
While the internet can be a useful research tool, it can also be used to rip people off. As such, you should never click on links in unsolicited emails. Or Facebook and Twitter fundraising messages, for that matter. Also, never donate money by text without confirming the phone number on the charity’s official website.
Additional Resources
Here are the helpful websites that you can use to research the legitimacy of charitable organizations. You can also report any that you suspect are fraudulent. As we said, charities are a billion-dollar business, so there are plenty of watchdog organizations out there trying to separate the good from the bad. Be careful and continue doing good!
The Internal Revenue Service maintains an online database where you can check whether an organization is a registered charity and if your donation will be tax-deductible.1
You can report suspected charity fraud to the Federal Trade Commission and the government agency in your state that regulates charities.2
The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, CharityWatch and GuideStar provide a lot of useful information on charitable organizations.3 These sites include ratings, reviews, and relevant tax data.
