By Steve Dinnen
The other day I got a call from a telemarketer who was trying to secure some funding for a law officers’ support organization. I took a little time to ask some questions about who they were, what they did and how much they spent on that support.
Turned out they spent about 20% of their money on programs that support those officers. The other 80% was overhead, burned up on phone banks, marketing, and commissions paid to those telemarketers. At that point, I politely hung up and scratched the group off the list for Giving Tuesday.
There are tens of thousands of local and national charities that would benefit from Giving Tuesday largesse. So how do you determine the best organizations?
At the national level, Charity Navigator is a great tool. The team who runs it pores over tax records and reports of thousands of nonprofits to see how each one is administered and how they spend money. Charity Navigator then rates all the charities according to how much money they spend on programs versus fundraising and administration. (The more money spent on programming, the better; 70% to 80% is a pretty good score.) Charity Navigator also reviews how much nonprofit spends on its executives, and how independent a board of directors might be.
Closer to home, the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines manages GIVEdsm, a program that vets local nonprofits. So if you’d like to pitch in, just scan the list and get started, knowing your contributions will be spent wisely.
