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How do I verify the legal status of individual organizations or nonprofits?
One of the most difficult challenges I face as a donor is finding the right nonprofits to donate. There are just one too many nonprofits to donate to. I will like my donations to be used for the right causes but how does one know when a charity is genuine from a pool of so many. I don’t believe social media pages are enough to make a good decision when it comes to nonprofit verification.
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6 Replies
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You can easily check a number of things online: 1) incorporation using the Secretary of State business lookup tool for the organization’s HQ state. 2) exempt status with the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations. 3) financials through https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/. 4) “transparency” rating through https://candid.org/ 5) BBB complaints in general or their charity profile in particular https://give.org/. Not all worthy nonprofits have information in the last three, but the first two are gold.
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This has been an issue for me too. Thank you for sharing.
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Thank you Sara for the response and suggestions. I will definitely look them up.
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It is so hard to know who to trust just from social media.
My personal rule of thumb is to check the IRS tool first to confirm they are legit. Then I look at Charity Navigator to see how much of my money actually goes to the programmes, not admin. That is usually the deciding factor for me.
It takes a few minutes, but it gives me real peace of mind.
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This reply was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by Riley.
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This reply was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by
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I find myself lucky to stumble on this thread and even more, the comment of Sara. I have also been looking for how to verify nonprofits. I have used all the suggestions made here, and they are all gold.
Meanwhile, I stumbled on two API tools that offer an automated way of verifying nonprofits. The one of interest to me is the Nonprofit Check Plus API because of its affordability, and I would need a second opinion.
This Nonprofit Check Plus API simplifies nonprofit verification by enabling one to check nonprofit status and relevant compliance information programmatically.
@Sara.A.Peterson With your expert knowledge, can you help give it a second look for me to see if it is something I should use?
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I completely agree. A polished social media presence is evidence of marketing, not proof of legitimacy. The IRS itself recommends checking a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status, eligibility to receive deductible contributions, and filings through its Tax Exempt Organization Search. For donors who want to make this process faster, APIs can come in handy. Though I am not a fan of APIs, APIs such as the Ready API and Nonprofit Check Plus API are known for quick verification steps. You have to compare organizations based on verified information rather than whoever has the most convincing Instagram page.