What’s “blind charity love?”
Know someone who gives to a charity without knowing much about it other than its name or its mission? Who has just assumed that, since the charity works on an important cause, it must be worth supporting? That’s blind charity love.
Blind charity love may be comforting and easy. But it’s not a serious or effective way to make donated dollars do the most good.
Blind charity love ignores the truth that charities vary greatly – even charities working on the same cause. While many charities do strong work with the moneys entrusted to them, others lack focus or management and produce little impact.
Want to avoid blind charity love?
Get to know the charity. Look at its latest IRS information returns and annual reports. They can tell you a lot about how the charity spends the money entrusted to it. Things like whether it spends reasonable amounts on programs, administration and fundraising; which program gets the bulk of the dollars; whether it actually needs more money.
If the numbers check out, get to know the charity even better. Call them on the phone, and ask about their programs. See how they deal with you. Visit an operating program. Get to know the leadership. Ask how its programs make an impact, and how it measures that impact.
If the numbers and further checking bring positive results – give the charity some love. If the results aren’t positive – move on to another charity doing work you care about.
The SGO Find-a-Charity search engine is a great starting place for getting more information on almost 300,000 charities.
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