You may have seen this hashtag on your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram newsfeeds today. What is it all about? In response to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday is a movement to create a global day of giving to kick off the holiday season. New York’s 92nd Street Y was the catalyst for the movement …
Posts Categorized: Donations
What to Ask Before You Write a Check
Do you know what to ask a charity before you make a donation? Especially with large donations, donors should undergo some level of due diligence before handing over a check. Many donors look at an organization’s website and may even review its Forms 990, but is that enough? The Wall Street Journal recently confronted this …
How to Best Help Survivors of Typhoon Haiyan
Following the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan, many are trying to figure out the most effective way to help. We’ll cut to the chase: it’s money. Often at times of disaster people want to donate new and used clothing, canned foods, and building supplies. Typhoon survivors need shelter, medicine, and food – NOW. They don’t …
Who's Protecting My Donation from a “Significant Diversion”?
Donors around the country are asking themselves that since The Washington Post published a series of articles reporting that more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations have reported a “significant diversion” of assets since 2008. A significant diversion is one that is more than the lesser of $250,000 or 5% of an organization’s gross receipts or total …
Save Your Co-Mingling for Happy Hour
Thanks to Big Brothers Big Sisters, we have a great example of how not to spend government money. A government audit recently concluded that the organization can’t properly account for any of the $19.4 million of Justice Department funding it received. These tax dollars were provided to the organization as restricted funds, in other words, …
How do You Measure a Nonprofit's Effectiveness?
Earlier this week, we blogged about a letter from three prominent organizations strongly refuting the use of overhead costs to measure a nonprofit’s effectiveness. But, in seemingly direct contradiction to this letter, a new Oregon law requires that nonprofits spend no less than 30% of their total annual expenses on charitable programs. Worst of all, …