Donating to a charity can often be a very risky endeavor due to the large number of scams that exist. Here are three options that can help you ensure that your donations will go to a legitimate nonprofit organization or charity.

Utilize Online Databases To Determine The Validity Of The Charity

The first step to take to ensure that you are donating to a legitimate charity is to utilize one of the many online databases to determine the validity of the charity. One of the biggest ones that you can utilize is the IRS, which maintains a database that you can search to determine if a nonprofit organization is actually tax-exempt. This is important because it will let you know if your donation will be tax deductible and if the charity is actually legitimate as most charities do have nonprofit status.

Take A Look At Financial Documents

You should also consider taking a look at the financial documents that have been made public by a charity in order to determine if it is legitimate. In most cases, a charity does have to make certain financial documents available to the public, typically because this can help provide quite a bit of transparency about how the donations are going to be utilized, such as the amount that will go to administration fees and how much will actually go to the purpose of the charity. If a company has not made these documents public or makes it extremely difficult to find these documents, then there is a good chance that you will want to move on as the company or service may not be legitimate or may be trying to hide something.

Be Very Cautious When It Comes To How You Give Your Donation

Finally, try to be very cautious when it comes to how you give your donation to a charity. If a charity is trying to push you to give your donation over the phone by providing a credit or debit card, this can be a cause for concern as that is not a very secure way to provide your donation. Instead, consider donating to an alternative charity that actually provides a very secure online method of accepting your donation.

Making sure that your donation is going to a legitimate nonprofit or charity should be one of your highest priorities when making a donation. To ensure that you are donating to a legitimate charity it is very important that you utilize online databases to determine the validity of the charity, take a look at financial documents, and be very cautious when it comes to how you give your donation.

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