These days, it’s an unfortunate reality that bad faith is everywhere. And quite honestly, why shouldn’t it be that way?
One may wish to debate whether there is more bad faith than ever because people are more apt to take advantage of each other than ever, or whether we are simply more aware of our surroundings and of human nature than ever, but in any case, this is where we are right now, a world of people trying to figure each other’s true intentions out and not get burned in the process.
“I Want To Help BUT…”:
Many of us want to be generous with some of what we have left over after paying the bills, be that a tiny little but or a substantial sum. However, when it comes time to look at a suitable space for donating our dough, we run into a bunch of people, organizations, and websites that we have trouble taking at face value, and perhaps for good reason. Maybe we’ve been wanting to donate to Oxfam by phone , for example, but our suspicion and paranoia got the better of us, so we held off. Maybe Oxfam (or insert name of charity here) is actually a good organization that deserves our resources, but we want to be sure. So what can be done about this?
How To Vet A Charitable Organization:
There are several tools for vetting organizations to tell if they are worth the donations they are getting, and the good news is that none of them are overly complicated:
-Charitable organizations that are international in scope are almost always registered with the IRS as such. You can check here in this database to see if they have been included.
-There are also less formal but perhaps even more useful websites dedicated to vetting charities. I’m saying they are more useful because they include data on transparency and financial practises.
Red Flags:
Run away if any of the following things occur when dealing with a charity:
-They thank you for a previous contribution that you didn’t actually make.
-They insist on donating by text, or by cash or wire, methods that are not easily traceable
-They are not able to provide you with a receipt for tax purposes.
-They are not able to provide you with detailed information about the organization
-They can’t take a phone call and/or there is no way of contacting them by phone.
-Their name is suspiciously close to that of another bigger organization.
