Charities and Fchat

I want to be very careful about this, but I think it is worth saying.

I am very impressed with the efforts that some go to raise money, and I am equally happy to see how generous people are with donations. However, that being said: I think when money is exchanged there is always the chance that it could be mishandled or worse. For this reason I want to make some suggestions out there for donors and organizers alike.

Organizers here are simple things that you should do when collecting for a charity:

1- Post information including the full name of the charity
2- Ideally, you should ask donations to be made by check in the charities name. Cash is not advisable.
3- You should provide a receipt for tax purposes to all members who donate.
4- Most importantly, you should research very carefully the charity you choose.

Donors:

The most important thing is to know information about the charity. Ideally, you want to give money to a charity where the money goes to the cause and not back into the pockets of the owners. Charities that are above board will share the financial statements with watchgroups to show that they are not pocketing the money. With so many charities out there it is imperative to seperate the good from the bad, this is up to us, the donors. There are some great sites to look up charities:

http://www.charitynavigator.org (by far the most comprehensive site out there)
http://www.give.org/

Looking at the financials of some of these charities is a real eye opener. It is all too easy for people to play on our heart strings and collect money that merely goes back into their pockets. As such I urge all of you to research before donating.

-N

 

Just to post an example: the run being organized by Neil for the Juvenile Diabetes Fund looks like a very straight and respectable charity.

Here is the info:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/3963.htm
http://smartgivers.org/SmartGiversReview/231907729.html

You can see that JDF shares it's books, and is on the up and up. In short 16 cents of every dollar goes to administrationg and fund raising, while a large majority goes to the actual charity. This is a very important piece of info.