How many of you have donated to your favorite charity in order to help them during their difficult times? Have you ever thought about checking into that charity to see if what they presented to the public is the truth, or if they are even, in fact, a charity? I was confronted with this very issue this past week when a gentleman my husband used to work with contacted me through facebook and asked me, along with other folks that he knew were involved in the rescue of animals, to check out an organization that publicized animals that are available for adoption in shelters across the country. His daughter had found the picture of a puppy that she fell in love with and she wanted nothing more for her 18th birthday than to make that puppy her own. I was only familiar with one website that has the photos and details of animals in shelters across the country and that is Petfinder.com, so I was surprised to hear there was another attempting to fulfill that need but whatever works to get the message out there is a good thing. I didn’t have much to go on except the name of the puppy, the photo of the puppy, and the name of the website where she found the information. The first thing I did was go to the website and checked out the “contact us” and “about us” information, and saw that they presented themselves as a 501(c)3 charity, which means any money you donate to them is 100% tax deductable. Whenever anyone tells you that you don’t have to take them at face value, you can go to the IRS website and check it out for yourself:
http://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/mainSearch.do?mainSearchChoice=pub78&dispatchMethod=selectSearch
Fill out the information and it will return their exemption status. Imagine my surprise to find out that this organization was not a 501(c)3 charity but instead a public charity with only a 50% deductible so what they presented on their website was incorrect. I tried to call them, but they had a phone number that was impossible to get through on so I sent them an email, their preferred contact method, but I have yet to hear back from them. I don’t understand why anyone would do that because I couldn’t find anything else about them that didn’t seem legitimate, but this sends up a serious red flag. Then I checked with the Better Business Bureau Charity Review website:
http://www.bbb.org/us/Charity-Reviews/
but there was no record of them there so I asked the BBB to investigate them. There had been no negative report on BBB.org about them before I contacted them so I think they were legit in all other ways except this, but this is a big one. You can’t fool with people’s money. There are many organizations out there that are legitimate charities that take your money yet little of what they collect makes it to support what they state. It is always good to check into their operating costs and ask how much of your donation goes into board member salaries, etc. before you donate. That’s why I’ve always been impressed with the Randolph County Humane Society. Their board members donate 100% of their time. All the monies raised goes to support the animals. There is no waste. Before you donate your hard earned dollar, check out where it’s going. If the charity is taking more than 10-15% for operating costs to support its board before the money is used to support the charity, maybe you should look elsewhere to donate your hard earned money. I’m not saying they don’t deserve it, I’m only saying it deserves another look. And then think about sending it to RCHS where all of it goes to the animals. And never forget, it’s only through you that the RCHS continues to save lives, one by one.
