Giving
During this time of year a lot of us think a little more about charities and good causes. There seems to be so many associations to give to and sometimes it may be hard to decide. Before you do decide though you need to do a few things first once you have found those charitable entities that you want to donate to.
1. Check them out on the Better Business Bureau
2. Read up on the organization and make sure they do what you think you are supporting
3. If you are using a website, ensure that it is the organizations site and not a scam site set up to profit from funds meant for that organization.
The BBB (Better Business Bureau) can give you all kinds of information on charitable organizations that will help you make the decision. They provide many of the things that you need to properly research charities so use them as your first source.
Just because an Organization has a name that has Cancer in it (for instance) doesn’t mean that they do what you expect. They may not be the research, hospice, or care site that you are expecting. I have seen charities set up that provide the service of telling you what services are available. While that may be an honest endeavor it took me quite some time to figure out that was all the charity did. So 10% of the donations went to operating costs of pointing the needy in the right direction instead of actually helping them with the need. Use a search engine and read all that you can about the organization. Maybe even search the organization on the AP news site.
Sometimes it is hard to spot a fake site. Try using the yellow pages or some other trusted source to get the proper website. It seems that a lot of the time the real site will show up at the top in the major search engines also but this is not always the case either. I would try and use 3 separate ways to verify the site and if you have a phone number call them.
This is the season to give but you want your money to go to who you intend for it to so be wise and do your research. If you need some suggestions though I would like to recommend giving a donation to the USO. They do a whole lot for the troops and this season can be a hard one for those guys and gals that are deployed. The USO sends care packages out to those deployed soldiers and sometimes a care package can make a persons day while deployed and far from family and friends during the holidays.
In closing I want to thank all of the readers of TWR and I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and if you don’t celebrate it that way then Happy Holidays. I wish you all joy and peace and hope everyone has a prosperous and great new year.
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This is the season to give but you want your money to go to who you intend for it to so be wise and do your research.
Excellent post, and I agree about the USO, however, I’d be weary about hte Better Business Bureau. Seth Godin actually wrote about it in his blog, he was cold called by someone trying to get him to pay a fee to get listed in the BBB.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/11/spam-they-still.html