How to check a nonprofit before you give, including this one

Giving well is mostly a research problem, and the research is more tractable than it looks. Here is the checklist we would want someone to apply to us.

Find the registration. In the United States, a 501(c)(3) has an Employer Identification Number, and you can look it up against the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search before you give a cent. Ours is 33-4910230, and it is on our Disclosures page and on every receipt.

Ask what the money buys, specifically. If the answer is a percentage or a mission statement, you have learned nothing. If it is a budget with named lines and prices, you can form an actual opinion. Every project here publishes one.

Ask what happens after. Any organization can describe a plan. Far fewer commit in advance to publishing what the money was spent on. Look for a spend ledger, not a highlights reel. Ours is on each project page, and it updates as expenses are entered.

Look for the uncomfortable numbers. Salaries, overhead, contingency. An organization that hides them is not cheaper than one that shows them; it is just less legible. Our General Fund names a $65,000 salary line and the Nepal clinic names its 10% contingency and 8% admin overhead.

Check the safeguarding, especially where children are involved. Consent for photography, insurance, first aid, chaperoning. In the Nepal budget those are line items with prices, in Category E, because that is the only way to know they were actually paid for.

And check what they say when something goes wrong. We publish what did not work in our project reports. If you ever find we have quietly stopped, that is a finding, and you should treat it as one.