‘Tis the Season - charities and your charity

Courtesy of The Catholic Spirit

Donating to charities is a noble act.

In fact, Christians are encouraged to give 10 percent of their income to church and charity.

But how do you know if a charity is reliable? How can you guarantee that it’s going to spend your well-intended money on helping the poor or protecting the environment - and not on a new sports car for its president?

If you’re ready to get serious about deciding where your donation dollars go, help is available on the Web.

For organizations that are national in scope, try the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance at www.give.org/reports. Founded in 2001, the organization is affiliated with the Council of Better Business Bureaus. A menu along the left side has more information about the organization, plus FAQs and tips on giving. The page itself lists the current BBB Wise Giving Alliance reports on charities and other organizations that solicit donations nationally.

To get an idea of what the reports look like, we looked up Catholic Charities USA, a popular charity affiliated with the church. (This Web site does not cover local organizations such as a local Catholic Charities.) At the top of the page is a statement saying Catholic Charities USA meets all BBB standards for charitable solicitation. Those standards include public accountability, reasonable use of funds (at least 50 percent of total income spent on programs and activities rather than funding or administrative costs), as well as above-board fund-raising, solicitation and governance practices.

That stamp of approval may be enough to add the charity to your list. For those who wish to investigate further, the report, dated September 2002, lists some facts about the charity, including what it does, the previous year’s program expenses and income. (In this particular report, the numbers reflect a large amount of relief aid and donations for Sept. 11 victims in 2001, according to a note at the bottom.)

We also learn about staff numbers and other administrative facts, such as chief executive officer Father H. Bryan Hehir’s salary of $100,750, which is quite low in comparison to many large nonprofits. The page also contains a pie chart that shows what proportion of the organization’s funds is spent on administrative and fund-raising expenses versus actual program expenses.

Notes below the chart help explain discrepancies. In the case of Catholic Charities, the notes are more informative than the pie chart, which shows figures for an extraordinary outpouring of gifts after Sept. 11. If the figures are adjusted to exclude those restricted contributions, the notes say, Catholic Charities USA spent 68 percent of its total income ($14.2 million) on program services.

The BBB’s site contains reports for hundreds, if not thousands, of national organizations. But it doesn’t contain charities that only serve a local area. For organizations that don’t necessarily have a national scope, try your state’s Attorney General’s Office. Look for “Charity Division” or similar title.

To give you an example of what to expect, in my area, the search feature is online at http://www.ag.state.mn.us/charities/char_srch.asp. At the bottom of the page, users plug in the name of the charity they want to research, then hit the Search button. Read the search instructions on the page for tips on how to do it.

A hint: If your search comes up empty at first, try being less specific. For example, we decided to look up Joseph’s Coat, a St. Paul free store. When we typed in the full name, city name (using both St. Paul and Saint Paul) and state, we came up with error messages. Typing “Josephs” (without the apostrophe or any city and state information) simply brought us back to the search page. But when we simply typed in the word “Joseph,” we got a list of organizations with the word “Joseph” in their names, including the one we were looking for - Joseph’s Coat Inc.

You’ll be looking for a web page with some general information about the organization, including its address, phone number, description, contact person and a link to reports about the company.

Minnesota’s site breaks down revenues and expenses into a variety of line items and lists net assets, balance sheet information and highest-paid officers and employees.

This Web site does not have pie charts, but you can get some interesting information from the line items. Of its $45,751 in expenses, $36,901 went to program expenses. (That’s about 81 percent.) Expenses were less than annual revenues; clearly, Joseph’s Coat operates on a much smaller budget than does Catholic Charities, but it appears to have been doing OK.

Researching charities before you give them your money is a sound idea. But at some point, your personal feelings about the charity’s mission should factor in to your decision.

As the Charities Review Council of Minnesota suggests, ask yourself:

- Is this a mission I am personally committed to supporting?

- Do I feel this charity’s accomplishments are significant?

- Are the charity’s priorities my priorities?

- Does this charity work to raise public awareness about a cause I feel strongly about?

If you say yes to those questions, and the charity seems to be above-board, you’re on your way to becoming a wise and thoughtful giver.