26
What are the best charities to donate to?
(beehaw.org)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
26 points (100.0% liked)
AskBeehaw
2003 readers
1 users here now
An open-ended community for asking and answering various questions! Permissive of asks, AMAs, and OOTLs (out-of-the-loop) alike.
In the absence of flairs, questions requesting more thought-out answers can be marked by putting [SERIOUS] in the title.
Subcommunity of Chat
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The best charity is subjective, it depends on what you think is important (protecting the environment, education, ...)
That being said, before you give, you should do due diligence by looking up the charity you're considering. These resources can help you verify a charity is effective, doesn't waste money, and isn't a known scam.
Charity Navigator rate charities: https://www.charitynavigator.org/about-us/
Better Business Bureau rate companies and charities. https://www.bbb.org/search?find_country=USA&find_text=red%20cross&page=1&sort=Relevance
I respectfully offer that the Better Business Bureau is not a reputable source. They rate companies and charities in the same way Yelp rates businesses. They offer fees for ratings and the complaint process does absolutely nothing. I'll let you do the google sleuthing on it, but please, do not use them for anything.
Charity Navigator, Candid, and ProPublica offer far better tools for assessing charity. If you're paywalled from navigating some of the tools provided by Candid or other big entities, you can try your local library as they'll sometimes have access.
Finally, the "best" charity in my line of work (I research these things) depends on three things:
And you should absolutely read what @frog@beehaw.org has contributed. Clear mission/value/goal/program alignment, transparency, and accountability to the public are, generally, praise worthy organizations. Those that do not provide annual reports, 990s, and other important information on their websites are, in my research/experience, generally doing something questionable if not illegal.
Well said! And just to add to your advice, for any UK-based people reading this, the place to check charity information, including the trustees' annual reports, financial statements, and audits (if applicable) is the gov.uk charity register.