Rating Charities.

 Before donating to that charity or appeal,you should check who the real beneficiaries are.Internationally,the Indian Ocean Tsunami Appeal and the more recent Haiti Appeal left a lot of wealthy contractors and a world of disillusioned and disgruntled donors. In Australia,the recent Victoria Bushfires Appeal saw an entire government bureaucracy established using donated funds,while displaced people continued to live in questionable conditions.


 Give generously, but be certain of whom your funds support -and how.In Haiti,some consider that donations in effect subsidised the US militarisation of the country.Other questions as to the ability of individual aid organisations to respond in a timely manner were brought into question. In Australia, non church based charities have extra reporting and compliance obligations which church based organisations do not. Does the Charity receive government or corporate funding for the project concerned? Are they "double dipping?".


 Our assessment system for analysing the effectiveness of Charitable donations is limited to some extent by the moral integrity of the accounting structure used by the Charity being assessed.

• Organisations which deliver government programs of any kind should NOT be supported. These organisations are paid by government to deliver services.There are 2 basic reasons why government use these providers.The first is cost. By using volunteers and paying staff considerably lower incomes than government awards,cutting corners on risk management,OHS and client service standards.The second reason is to blameshift and shift budgets to an unelected organisation,for which the relevant minister and department can be held blameless when issues become public. In addition,as in Australia,most are church based and therefore subject to less financial scrutiny than non-church based charities. If an unelected organisation is government funded, it should not be classed as a charity or able to raise funds by public donation.  
• Cancer and other medical research NGOs should be viewed with a degree of scepticism.These organisations are well known for their high administrative and collection costs, and some for conducting research which benefits major pharmaceuticals companies.
• We use a as guidance the guidelines of American Institute of Philanthropy http://bit.ly/9mI8pv minimum of 75% of donations received returned to target constituency, with the additional criteria IN A FORM IDENTIFIED AS NECESSARY by the target constituency, as an acceptable figure.We do not allow the charity being assessed to provide "target constituents."
• We look at high infrastructure and staffing costs.Are the buildings necessary?Transportation?When assessing staffing costs,ask what the highest and lowest salaries are.Ask about contracted service providers.Research often masks fund shifting to related persons or parties.
• Charities using Street Collectors, or online donation systems should be asked what proportion of your donation is retained by the collection agents,if a collection agent is involved.We stopped donating to MSF Australia because of their relationship with a fundraising organisation.We continue to support MSF by other means.
• Check at least annually.Yesterdays streamlined,efficient charity is sometimes todays inefficient bureaucracy.
• When analysing remote assistance projects,be prepared for high logistics costs as a legitimate part of the project.

 While 25% of funds donated appears to be the accepted norm for administrative costs, some charities operate at 7-8% retained for administration.A few are structured using donated professional services and 3 (worldwide) are known to operate on 100% of donations passed on to target constituencies.


Australia: There is no reliable rating of Charities in Australia. Church Based charities are completely unaccountable. Many are adept at manipulating their accounting systems to disguise outrageous infrastructure or contractor costs, often being payments to related parties.
 Independently funded, non-government supported, non-religious Charities are generally the most efficient service providers.Government supported 
 We do NOT recommend donating to ANY Children based Charity, except The Starlight Childrens Foundation. By Federal and State Government decree,ALL Childrens Charities which actually deal with Children are Mandatory Spy Agencies for Family Invasive Government Departments.In Australia,these unfortunately named departments are the major risk confronting children, young adults and families.Government intrusion now uses the offices of these Charity based NGOs to perpetrate their mischiefs, so these organisations should not be considered for funding.  


Canada: 
www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/chrts/menu-eng.html. is a Canadian Government site covering all listed Canadian Charities.The site includes information on charities "not in good standing" with the Canadian Government. This should not necessarily be regarded unfavorably.Charities can,and often are, "not in good standing" because they refuse to be politically influenced.
 This article also gives an idea of how some international charities financing operates.