How to Choose the Right Charity for You

Finding the right charity to make a donation to is a difficult task indeed. There are so many stories of fraud and trouble with well-known charities that you can’t be sure where your money is going anymore. According to dial2donate.org, the best way to start your search for a good charity is to start with a broad search. There are many good recommendation websites online that you can refer to when starting out. Use these sparingly to try and narrow your list of possible charities down a little. Don’t be too dependent on these websites, though.

Start Conducting Phone Interviews

You can either call the charity you have selected from the bigger list and ask them questions, or you can request a meeting to get a general idea of how it operates. Charities have special departments called development departments. The personnel in these departments have the job of fostering a relationship with potential donors. If you plan on making donations in the long term, you should do research, and do as much of it as possible.

While you are at it, take a look at the annual report of the charity. This report is public domain and will be a good indicator of how dedicated the charity is to its overarching mission and principles. Does your charity of choice have an aura of courage in its annual report or one of caution? Does the message it delivers inspire you? Always check the hard facts before making a decision.

Inquire About Their Goals and Progress

When you talk to the representatives at the charity, ask them to provide you with actual data and analytics that support their claims of progress towards their mission objectives. Ask them what metrics they use to measure their success and whether they would call themselves successful. If the charity doesn’t have the slightest idea about the data they collect, they probably won’t be a good option for you.

Sometimes, though, it can be an issue because the organization’s effectiveness won’t be directly related to the problems they solve. For example, if their mission is to solve a problem that will take a while to resolve, they might seem like they aren't making any real progress. In cases like these, ask for their short-term goals and statements of what they have accomplished so far.

A good example of this is if a charity has a mission to provide better education to children in Mogadishu. They may not be able to completely solve the problem but ask for statistics of students who have passed exams due to the schooling given by charity funding.

Charities Need Some Business Sense

Most charities try to appeal to your softer side. Many people donate without a second thought when shown an image of a starving person. By bringing business strategies into the decision-making process when selecting a charity, you gain some useful insights into which companies are doing work that matters and which are doing nothing to achieve their goals.