April 24, 1997-Vol28n29: Charity Begins at Home(Page)

Charity Begins at Home(Page)

"Contributor Beware" has become a modern-day slogan in light of the many news stories about charities that have abused their trust with their contributors. The World Wide Web can provide the information you need to make informed charitable contribution decisions, whether you are responding to a charitable campaign solicitation from a neighbor, deciding which group to make a memorial donation to, or engaging in personal philanthropy.

For example, the National Charities Information Bureau (http://www.give.org) states that its mission is to "promote informed giving and charitable integrity." At a glance you can read the NCIB's guidelines used to evaluate charities and then look at a list of 300 national agencies listed alphabetically to see if the agency measures up. (The NCIB also provides listings by the following categories: cancer agencies, relief agencies and environmental organizations.) You can request up to three free reports using an online order form. The NCIB Reports gives information on the structure of the agency, its activities, its governance, and its finances including program and fund-raising expense ratios.

GuideStar (http://www.guidestar.org) provides free reports on over 40,000 public charities. These reports are based on IRS form 990 (required of all non-religious public charities with revenue over $25,000) and on information supplied by charities themselves. The GuideStar site has a search feature that allows users to search by keyword, location and type of charity. GuideStar also provides links to Web homepages of national nonprofit institutions, state charity officials, and grant information.

The Internet Nonprofit Center (http://www.nonprofits.org) provides both a "library" of independent information about nonprofit organizations and a "gallery of organizations" that includes nonprofit organizations' own brochures, annual reports and Web sites. Particularly useful are the INC's "Best Buys for Big Hearts" based on evaluations of the American Institute of Philanthropy and the listing of the "Top Forty [largest] Charitable Organizations in the U.S.," including the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, Girl Scouts USA, Habitat for Humanity, March of Dimes, Second Harvest, etc. The INC also provides numerous links to additional web resources of special interest to donors in its "heliport" including, for example, HungerWeb, International Service Agencies, the NonProfit Times, the Program on Non-Profit Organizations at Yale University, and Who Cares, a national journal devoted to community service.

For information on connecting to the World Wide Web via University at Buffalo computer accounts, contact the CIT Help Desk at 645-3542.

-- Gemma DeVinney and Don Hartman, University Libraries