Charity Transparency and Accountability

Living in the USA? Want to know more about a charity you support?

This web site is very easy to navigate and will provide you with a lot of interesting information. http://www.charitynavigator.org/

When looking at any charity I never, ever, look at the money
spent on fundraising, campaigns etc. Why? Because any good
accountant can, without doing anything illegal, make such figures
appear favourable and charts/graphs look reasonable.

Far more interesting are things like, how much do the Directors pay themselves? How much money does a charity have sitting in its bank accounts? And in the case of wildlife charities, how many animals, forests etc have they REALLY saved in the last year? Because these charities exist only to save animals, habitat etc. and if they are not doing this, then why should they receive your money?

Caution: You will find some charities do pay their senior staff very well and they appear to save very little.

Finally, bear in mind when you see how much some of these groups have sitting in their bank accounts (and many groups also have overseas offices with their own money), they are still asking for more money whilst orangutans, tigers etc are facing extinction.