It’s a terrible feeling. You want to help, so you give the gift of your hard-earned money, time or talent to a charity, only to find out you’ve been scammed. Most of the charity’s profits go into the pockets of those who collected the money, not to help the cause.
The Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting, based on federal tax filings for the last 10 years, compiled a list of the 50 worst charities, (they only listed 50 though there are many more). They found these charities had collected $1.3 billion in donations, but only 0% – 11% of profits actually went to support their stated missions.
Even if you haven’t been scammed, you have to pay the price. When $1.3 billion is diverted away from honest charities, we lose services our communities depend upon, our taxes increase, and we add another layer of cynicism to our shaken beliefs in who we can trust.
We encourage everyone, no what matter cause you support, to give responsibly and know exactly what your donation is being used for.
At Shelter, Inc., we are committed to transparency. To learn more about us, please explore the following resources:
- Our website
- Our Facebook page
- Your municipality, township and legislators
- IRS.gov
- CharityNavigator.org
- Guidestar.org
- SeriousGivers.org
- CharityCheck101.org, or any other independent source