Bad charities article

[NancysSummerSip]

The Tampa Bay Times did the story. Interesting to see the money trail. They also provide websites to check on the health of a charity before you give:

This is the list of the fifty worst charities, based on how much donated money actually goes to help those in need versus what goes to the solicitors. The websites for checking a charity before you give are listed on the left side.

www.tampabay.com/americas-worst-charities/

This is the story itself:

www.tampabay.com/topics/specials/worst-charities.page

[Shooby]

  I don't give to national charities.  I give to local charities, the church and the food bank.  I think charity begins at home.

[Bluerobin]

Good Plan Shooby.  My only "national" is the Sallies, but it is to the local branch.

[deantrip]

Does anybody have a list of the good charities then?

[NancysSummerSip]

www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten

Dean, this is from Charity Navigator. There is no one "Best Of" list. There are guidelines, such as what percentage of the money collected a charity uses for its intended purpose. Charity Navigator looks at local, state, national and international charities and their financial records.

And to add: just because it's local, or it's a church, or you know the organization well, does not make it an honest charity. Several of the bad charities in the Tampa article are local, or they are national charities with local branches. You can look up any group before you donate, either on a site like Charity Navigator or your State Attorney General's webpage. If the group is registered, there will be a history there. If they aren't registered, why the heck would anyone donate a dime to them? A lack of state registration is a huge red flag.

[Deleted]

guidestar.com is another good site for checking out charities.  Everyone has different ideas of what's a "good" charity beyond the expense ratio; I've never given to animal charities, for example, because that doesn'r resonate with me, but I do donate heavily to the local women's shelter.  One of my friends is a director and another is a receptionist there, so I have a pretty good idea about what they accomplish with my donations.

Although we donate to a food bank, for the most part I'm also more interested in charities that help people out of bad situations rather than the ones that just treat the symptoms.  I cringed when I heard the director of a food bank say that her dream was that more people in the community would amke use of the food bank.  Heck, my dream is that food banks close because no one needs them anymore.

And I never donate when someone calls and asks for money, whether I know the charity or not.

[zibazinski]

That's just shameful.