Help Choosing a Legit Charity
Which charities are worth your hard earned money?
This was something that bothered me for a long time. I fully believe that donating your hard earned money to charity is good, whether you’re sure it’s a good charity or not. But isn’t there something troublesome about not knowing if you can trust where your money is going? I mean, I don’t know how many times I’ve donated money and then wondered if my money was going where it was supposed too.
A recent example, is that I was challenged to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Well naturally, I wanted to make sure that ALS Foundation was a good charity before I gave them my money.
Fortunately, there’s an answer to this predicament.
Everything is on the internet. Like, literally, everything. This includes information about charities, and how wonderful or horrible they really are. But you don’t have to spend hours Googling it. Fortunately, there are a few sites that can help. There are 3 sites I know of that will give you information about charities. Not only will they give you useful information, but often have them rated by various factors as well.
BBB Wise Giving Alliance
The Better Business Bureau
We’ve all heard of them, but how many of us have actually interacted with them? I haven’t, but they do have a website, and on this website, you can look up charities! You can look up a charity and see how the Better Business rates the charity based on Governance, Finances, Fund Raising & Info, and Measuring Effectiveness. Of course each of these, have a sub categories which are rated as well. The Better Business Bureau also has a National Charity Index Report. So if you are looking to find a charity with a particular purpose or a particular charity, this is a great place to start your search.
Charity Watch
- CharityWatch - Helping Donors Make Informed Giving Decisions
CharityWatch is a charity rating and evaluation service dedicated to helping donors make informed giving decisions.
Charity Watch
This is a really good one that focuses on the grade mostly. It doesn’t seem to be quite as robust as the Better Business Bureau, but I like how it breaks charities down by categories. This is usually the first one I come to when I’m looking for info on a charity. Not to say that it’s the best, but it’s usually the first one that I think of.
Charity Navigatore
- Charity Navigator - America's Largest Charity Evaluator | Home
Charity Navigator, America's largest independent charity evaluator, provides free ratings of the Financial Health and Accountability & Transparency of thousands of charities. We are the individual donor's first source for unbiased news and inform
Charity Navigator
As with the first two, this one also offers a rating on charities , but it seems to me to offer more additional information. For instance, on this one you can easily see if the charity makes big pay outs to it’s executives. I mean sure, people who for a charity should be compensated, but I don’t if I want my donation to go to a huge bonus for some CEO. Another thing I like about this one is that it allows users to comment on the charities.
Of course if you are really curious about a charity…
You could use all three of them and see how the charity holds up on each, allowing you to make a very informed decision. No wants their hard earned money donated to line someone elses pockets when it was meant for a good purpose. Now you don’t have to worry about it.
Of course, if you know of other good sites for this same purpose, feel free to share them in the comments section below!
