Whenever you choose a charity to donate to, you can always check out Guidestar or another similar website to find the Form 990’s for any non-profit organization. Form 990’s are an IRS filing that needs to be made every year, much like a tax return, that tells about the charitable organization – how much money actually goes to charity versus how much money is paid out for administration, grants, or other expenses.

In my posts the last couple of days, I mentioned many organizations. If you consider donating to one of them, definitely check out their website for more information on the cause and the group.

You can also check out Guidestar to see what the organization actually filed with the IRS. In addition, many legit organizations post their Form 990’s on their own website (and I don’t mean to say an organization isn’t legit if they don’t post them). Check out the tiny print at the bottom of the About Us webpages and you can usually find a link to that organization’s Form 990’s.

Another site that is useful to use to check out a charitable organization is Charity Navigator. You can quickly search the name of an organization and then click on the results to find out more information about that organization.

Don’t blindly donate to an organization if someone (even me) tells you to or they call you and make a heartfelt plea – check them out first –  and  make your own decisions.

If you know of a suspect breast cancer charity (like the Coalition Against Breast Cancer whom the NY Attorney General has sued as a sham charity), please leave me a comment and I will check them out and post more info.