Most people spend more time researching a $100 pair of shoes than a $100 donation. That's not because donors don't care — it's because nobody ever showed them what to check. The good news is that a genuinely useful vetting pass takes about ten minutes, and you don't need an accounting degree to do it. Here is the exact sequence we use when we evaluate organisations for our rankings.
Minute 1–2: Confirm the charity actually exists
Start with identity. A registered U.S. charity has an EIN (employer identification number) and appears in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. Search the charity's exact name — scammers love sound-alike names that are one word away from a famous organisation. If the name on the donation page doesn't match the name on the registration, or you can't find a registration at all, stop here.
While you're at it, check the website itself. A legitimate organisation states its legal name, physical address, and EIN somewhere findable — usually the footer or an "About" page. Vagueness on this front is a signal, not an accident.
Minute 3–4: Look at the money — but don't worship the ratio
Find the split between program spending, administration, and fundraising. Most charities publish an annual report; independent profiles on evaluator sites summarise it if they don't. As a rough rule, established charities direct 70–90% of spending to programs.
But here's the part most guides get wrong: a high program ratio is a floor check, not a quality score. An organisation spending 95% on programs can still run useless programs, and one spending 78% may simply be investing in the staff and systems that make its work effective. We've written a whole piece on this: the overhead myth. Use the ratio to screen out extremes, then move on to what actually matters.
Minute 5–7: Ask "what's the evidence this works?"
This is the heart of the vetting pass, and it's the question that separates casual giving from effective giving. Three things to look for:
- Independent evaluations. Has GiveWell, Charity Navigator, CharityWatch, or an academic study assessed the organisation? An evaluator's methodology page tells you what their rating actually measures — a four-star financial-health rating is not the same thing as evidence the programs work.
- Published outcomes, not activities. "We distributed 40,000 bednets, and post-distribution surveys found 90% in use six months later" is an outcome. "We are committed to fighting malaria" is a slogan. Real organisations count things and publish the counts, including the disappointing ones.
- Cost-per-outcome claims you can trace. Some charities publish figures like "$2 buys a bednet" or "$50 funds a year of a child's literacy program." Check the claim appears on the charity's own site — and treat any figure that seems magically cheap with suspicion. We audited every such figure on this site against the organisations' own published claims, and what we found is instructive.
Minute 8–9: Scan for trouble
Search the charity's name plus words like "investigation," "lawsuit," or "attorney general." Most results will be noise, but a pattern of recent, credible reporting is worth taking seriously. On this site, organisations with active concerns carry a visible advisory banner on their profile — that's exactly the kind of signal this step is meant to catch.
Also check the charity's news page or social feeds for a simpler reason: dormancy. An organisation that hasn't published anything in two years may not be operating in any meaningful sense.
Minute 10: Give in a way you can track
Donate through the charity's own website with a card — never by gift card, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency to an address you were sent. Save the receipt; U.S. donations to registered 501(c)(3) organisations are typically tax-deductible. And keep a record of what you gave and to whom — our free giving log exists precisely for that, and will show you a running estimate of what your donations have added up to.
Ten minutes won't make you an expert. It will put you ahead of the overwhelming majority of donors — and it will reliably keep your money away from the organisations that count on nobody checking.