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But you're comparing Obama's naivite

It was not just Obama's naivette — Hillary Clinton was running the State Department at the time. More to the point, it was not just the two of them either — the entire Democratic Establishment thought so, dismissing "Republican hawks" as "war-mongers". Whether they did it for personal gain, like Clinton, or out of sheer idiocy, like Biden ( the fount of foreign policy expertise, according to Democrats), they'll keep doing it.

You undercut your case when you link sources like "freebeacon", "powerlineblog", "breitbart"

No, I don't. First of all, my sources also include WSJ, NYTimes, and even Politifact. For someone, who offers no citations at all, it is rather rich to complain about mine.

Second, a fact remains a fact, no matter, who reports it.

the Clinton foundation is one of the highest rated major charities in the US

Yeah, sure. And Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

what you have against a charity that spends nearly 90% of its funds on stamping out AIDS and other diseases [...]

See? No citation again. Let me help you. Of the $91.3mln spent by the foundation in 2014, according to their own tax-filings, only $5.2 million went to charitable grants.

Your "Podesta story" is about Podesta (not Clinton) [...] he probably divested

You mentioned a number of things about Trump's advisors, including Manafort, who once help Yanukovich. It is perfectly fair for me to bring up Podesta. And I can keep doing it, too.

Versus Trump, who personally has owned and run businesses heavily backed by Russians

Citations are missing again, khmm... Let's see, if I can help. This? No... Sorry, you'll have to do it yourself.

Russians occasionally making investments in companies related to people related to Clinton

Clintons received — both directly and via their Foundation — billions of dollars. A lot of that came from Putin-controlled entities. Just in 2015, for example, when she was already actively engaged in elections, they reported as much $10 million in income. What do you suppose, they sold, other than some more cattle futures?

person who currently, actively, and strongly personally supports Putin

False. Pants on Fire.

has publicly advocated eliminating NATO

False. Pants on Fire.

wants to give Russia Crimea

False. Pants on Fire.

parades around information from Sputnik

Half true — irrelevant.

Its all fine and dandy to call me names, but do you have any proof of the contrary?

I'll submit as exhibit A, all the western governments public budget reports for the last 3 decades.

Oh yeah, and this too:

Main Signatory of that RICO letter, been siphoning up to a Million a year from grant money he's getting through his NGO for a part time job.
http://www.climatedepot.com/20...

Direct documents are here:
http://www.guidestar.org/ViewP...
http://state-employees.findthe...
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDo...

You should tell them that those in glass houses shouldnt throw stones.

Its all fine and dandy to call me names, but do you have any proof of the contrary?

I'll submit as exhibit A, all the western governments public budget reports for the last 3 decades.

Oh yeah, and this too:

Main Signatory of that RICO letter, been siphoning up to a Million a year from grant money he's getting through his NGO for a part time job.
http://www.climatedepot.com/20...

Direct documents are here:
http://www.guidestar.org/ViewP...
http://state-employees.findthe...
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDo...

You should tell them that those in glass houses shouldnt throw stones.

Note: I run a nonprofit organization and have a different perspective (+ bias!) about donations.

[1] Generally, I think it's best to begin as you already have by identifying those causes which are most important to you.

[2] Next, ask yourself if you're interested in pursuing a global / regional / local approach? The local org might focus on issues which matter to you - and it might be directly related to issues in your neighborhood. On the other hand "big" issues like constitutional rights might only be addressed at the national level.

Also, are you looking for a large well-established nonprofit or a small up-start where your money will have a more significant impact? For example a donation of $1,000 to the Red Cross will certainly be welcomed but likely not celebrated. If instead you made that $1,000 donation to a nonprofit running on a shoestring budget of $20,000 a year then you've just increased their budget by 5% - which is definitely cause for celebration!

[3] By now you should have at least a handful of charities which meet your criteria and can begin validating their effectiveness, transparency, and legal status.

A good place to start is GuideStar ( http://guidestar.org/ ). You will get information on IRS status, financials, mission statements as well as reviews. CharityNavigator ( http://charitynavigator.org/ ) is another great resource and they provide independent ratings of charities. One important distinction though is that CharityNavigator focuses on larger nonprofits (total revenue must be > $1million in the previous fiscal year).

My nonprofit has a listing with CharityNavigator but no rating because we are (much much much) too small. On the other hand at GuideStar we have a "Gold" rating based on the amount of information which we have shared with them. So either of these are great resources but my bias is showing when I lean toward GuideStar.

If for some reason you'd rather not use either of these sites I would suggest that at a minimum that you verify that the nonprofit has a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS and that it has not been revoked. You can search for orgs by name or EIN here: http://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

For more on charity scams here's some helpful info from the FTC: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/a...

[4] Once you have narrowed your list down to 1 or 2 then you can decide if there's a specific funding mechanism which appeals most to you (e.g. PayPal, cash, check, bitcoin). Some donation methods can take 5% (or more!) of the donation off the top before the nonprofit gets the donation.

For example, PayPal charges nonprofits a reduced fee of 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction (details here: https://www.paypal.com/webapps...). Also, BitPay does not charge us anything for bitcoin donations through our site.

Hopefully by going through this you will wind up with at least one charity which meets all of your criteria and can then just confirm their status in the future without going through all of these steps every time. Thank you on behalf of nonprofit organizations everywhere for supporting their efforts!

Shameless Plug
Of course I have to say something about my nonprofit's work: Jennifer Ann's Group is a nonprofit charity preventing teen dating violence. Our most successful program is producing video games to help young people, parents, and educators learn more about this issue and how to seek help if needed. We have produced 20+ video games through an annual video g

First off, I strongly suggest not donating to a charity unless they produce a 990 form.

There are still a lot of charities that are flat out scams, like breast cancer "awareness" charities who's board member owns a marketing firm, that creates awareness by calling people and asking for donations to their breast cancer awareness fund. Avoid "awareness" charities. Most of them are complete bunk.

Here are my top three websites for researching charities.

http://www.charitynavigator.or...

http://foundationcenter.org/fi...

http://www.guidestar.org/

I shoot for a 90% efficiency ratio. But that isn't always possible for all diseases. Sometimes you will have to settle for a 80-85% efficiency ratio. Whenever you find a charity that you like, look it up and see if there are any charities that address the same issue, but perform better.

Also, start looking at the 990 forms for the charities that you do give to. This will help you to evaluate charities that are too small to have 3rd party evaluations.

Also start looking at their Annual Reports to see what they have actually accomplished for the past year. This will be especially important for charities that do not provide services or do research (like political/lobbying charities). Their efficiency ratio will be much lower, but their staff may be doing what you consider to be important work. Avoid charities that are not readily transparent about how their money is spent and what their accomplishments are.

Some exceptions are small charities such as food banks or soup kitchens that do not have any paid staff or management. Those are probably some of the most efficient charities out there.

I would love to see an organization like wikipedia take over a browser. Let them do their once a year fundraiser. They could block whatever they like out of the box.

A fundraiser? You think a bake sale would raise the $5,391,119 dollars per year they spend?

Perhaps if they sold cookies -- oh, wait.

And who's paying them ~$100,000 a year?

http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/26-2171390/alliance-generational-equity.aspx

Their web site www.truslseniors.org is down

Another question is, who the fuck is C. McClain Haddow, the guy who's running Alliance for Generational Equity?
http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/lobbying/client/alliance-for-generational-equity

Mother Jones has a hint.

The Artful Codger
Trashing the AARP with Grandma Green.
By Michael Scherer
July/August 2005 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/07/artful-codger

The real pedigree of the group Green represents is hidden under layers of PR and politics. The Seniors Coalition was cofounded in 1989 by conservative activist Dan C. Alexander Jr., three years after he was sent to prison for arranging construction kickbacks as an Alabama school-committee member. Today, its top outside lobbyist is C. McClain Haddow, a former Health and Human Services official who spent time in prison with Alexander for failing to file a timely ethics waiver when he gave his wife a government contract. Haddow has also lobbied for generic-drugs manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals.

The organization’s Washington activities regularly blur the needs of seniors with the agendas of corporate donors. After it took money from Microsoft in 1999, the coalition lobbied on antitrust litigation, and after it took money from Lottery.com in 2000, it lobbied on a bill that would restrict Internet gambling. Money also poured in from the American Petroleum Institute and the American Public Power Association—just as the coalition spoke out against the Kyoto Protocol and lower gas-mileage standards.

The Seniors Coalition is especially tied to the drug industry. PHRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s trade group, gave the organization $2.2 million between 1999 and 2000 (the only two years for which full financial disclosure is available). Other drug industry sources funneled the group an additional $300,000 during that time. But Tom Moore, the coalition’s chief operating officer, writes in an email that only 22 percent of his organization’s funding comes from industry, and that the group “retains its complete independence in developing [its] legislative agenda.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

There is some interest group behind this that is going to save a lot of money if they eliminated the Universal Service Fund (which has its pros and cons), and this outfit is crying crocodile tears over the urban poor. Or generational equity. I'd take them more seriously if they were up front with their real agenda.

it's not actually shameful to have your donation to the women's shelter go to the salary of their childcare provider or other employees.

but it is shameful if 90% of the money goes to the CEO and board of the shelter. Looking at the 990 lets you know what the money has paid for in the past.

you can go to guidestar.org and look at the actual Form 990 from 2009. Here it is:
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2010/530/196/2010-530196605-06d0f01c-9.pdf
On page 10 you can see their functional expenses. From the totals line you can see where Charity Navigator gets its figures.
On Schedule J page 2 you can see the salaries and benefits paid to all board members and highly compensated employees.
This is all public information. Guidestar simply aggregates it.

You can also write off the income of anyone designated at 'administrators' of the charitable organization.

Before today I was completely unaware of Child's Play, so I visited Guidestar to have a look at actual numbers. This information is from their 2007 form 990 (the latest I found at Guidestar and the one that probably looks worst for expenses). It fully discloses Penny Arcade's affiliation (gee, the IRS cares about people trying to wash salaries and actually checks this sort of thing).

• Three Penny Arcade shareholders are "Directors, Officers, Trustees, or Key Employees" - none receive any compensation from Child's Play and the three combined received $515,725.25 in compensation from Penny Arcade. Looks like they're missing a huge opportunity to wash salaries in the way described.
• They paid a $37,000 for a project manager to administer $384,059 of cash and non-cash (e.g. games) grants. They allocate the project manger half to program (giving stuff away) and half to fundraising. I am a little confused by the PM, since they list no employees or independent contractors in their highest paid list.
• They spent $41,669 on fundraising expenses, most of it in three areas: $6000 for professional fundraising, $18,500 for the PM, and $12,024 for travel.
• They held a fundraising auction that lost $23,441.

I have questions as a result of that (very quick and limited) review, but none in the area of trying to wash salaries. I'm curious about where the Project Manager expense actually goes. I'm curious about the disaster of an auction - why they did it, what they learned, whether they plan to try again. I fail to see evidence of the sort of fraud you are claiming.

Corporations get into charity for multiple reasons: good public relations, donating to related interests, belief in the cause. That doesn't make promoting or giving to a charity a fundamentally bad thing. Unless you have evidence to back up your claims, the evidence I've seen suggests they are unfounded.

"White Dwarf Research Corporation is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to scientific research and public education on topics relevant to white dwarf stars." http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsReport.do?partner=networkforgood&ein=74-2924755/

...there's nothing that states on their page nor on any other I could find that they actually work WITH NASA on any sort of project, nor that any money donated will go to THIS project.

Basically this is just a fundraiser. It could just as easily been for the research into finding Natalie Portman's image in a bowl of hot grits.

As an aside, I notice they have no legal expenses.

Yes. It's going to be interesting to see if Wales reports this conflict of interest. It should be reported on IRS Form 990, under "Relationship to Other Organizations". That's where, if you're involved with both a for-profit and a non-profit in the same area, you have to report it.

Form 990 is a public record. GuideStar has them all on line, although you have to register there.

Public Relations work is actually fairly cheap. Even the largest PR company, Edelman PR, only had revenues of $206 million in 2002. [1] All they needed to do, in this case, is to create the impression of a "controversy" by ensuring that a few high profile "experts" get funded, so that politicians who wouldn't be inclined to act against global warming anyway would have a moral justification to do so. The Discovery Institute, by far the single most important entity in the similarly huge Intelligent Design "controversy", only received about $3.5 million in reveneues in 2004. [2] Now compare that number to the amount of media stories about "Intelligent Design" (a pure PR rebranding of the earlier "creation science" effort) in 2004. Of course, ExxonMobil's campaign is also part of a larger effort, as detailed, for instance, by PR experts Bob Burton and Sheldon Rampton in this article.

Actually, the Mozilla Foundation, as a non-profit organization, does need to disclose it.

For example, for 2004,

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/200/097 /2004-200097189-01fa37ef-9.pdf

Yeah, the Mozilla Foundation files IRS 990s at least... Can't seem to find anything newer than 2004 of course.

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/200/097 /2004-200097189-01fa37ef-9.pdf
http://www.scroogle.org.nyud.net:8090/mozilla.pdf (same content as above)

Not sure how that's going to work out with the MoCo spinoff; IANAA so I don't know if a NPO wholly owning a corp would need to report on profits made by the corp or not.

Please validate the charity you are giving money to. There is a non-profit organization that posts the yearly IRS filing of all NPO's. It's website is at http://www.guidestar.org/ (registration required)

So it requires someone to file a special request under the law to check Mozilla's dealings.

Not true. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation the Mozilla Foundation is required to file disclosure paperwork with the IRS every year. These disclosure filings (called Forms 990) are public and searchable via GuideStar (requires free registration).

The Mozilla Foundation's 990s are, it's true, only current to 2003. But that's not due to any deep conspiracy; it's just because they didn't file the 2003 990 until October 2004. So you shouldn't expect to see the 2004 disclosure until a year or so after that (October-November 2005).

If you want to spin a conspiracy theory, a more plausible one would involve the recent formation of the "Mozilla Corporation" as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Foundation. It's unclear to me if money paid to such an entity would need to be disclosed or not (it would definitely have to be reported to the IRS, but possibly in a way that isn't public like the 990 data). If not, it's possible that one of the motivations for the formation of the Corporation would be to accept large donations from parties like Google without having them show up on the Foundation's public disclosures -- but that's unlikely since Google has been the default search engine in Firefox since 0.1, and the Corporation has only existed since August of this year. So any payments from Google would have to have been pretty recent for this to be plausible.

You can now go back to your regularly scheduled tinfoil-hat fashion show ;-)

So it requires someone to file a special request under the law to check Mozilla's dealings.

Not true. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation the Mozilla Foundation is required to file disclosure paperwork with the IRS every year. These disclosure filings (called Forms 990) are public and searchable via GuideStar (requires free registration).

The Mozilla Foundation's 990s are, it's true, only current to 2003. But that's not due to any deep conspiracy; it's just because they didn't file the 2003 990 until October 2004. So you shouldn't expect to see the 2004 disclosure until a year or so after that (October-November 2005).

If you want to spin a conspiracy theory, a more plausible one would involve the recent formation of the "Mozilla Corporation" as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Foundation. It's unclear to me if money paid to such an entity would need to be disclosed or not (it would definitely have to be reported to the IRS, but possibly in a way that isn't public like the 990 data). If not, it's possible that one of the motivations for the formation of the Corporation would be to accept large donations from parties like Google without having them show up on the Foundation's public disclosures -- but that's unlikely since Google has been the default search engine in Firefox since 0.1, and the Corporation has only existed since August of this year. So any payments from Google would have to have been pretty recent for this to be plausible.

You can now go back to your regularly scheduled tinfoil-hat fashion show ;-)

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2003/200/097 /2003-200097189-1-9.pdf

Educational Testing Service is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides national and international educational testing, measurement and research.

You assume it's the goverments money to begin with. Reduce spending, do you have a clue how much pork is attached to any funding initiative just to get it passed? That includes the Bush Administration, don't spend what you ain't got. You have to pay sometime and that is always done with taxes sooner or later.

Private grants are few and far between. Most high end research gets done on the government's dollar. I wonder how far the Manhattan Project would have gone on private grants.

A search on Guidestar of Stem Cell research yield 23 organization with a total private funding of almost 1/2 a billion dollars. American citizens and corporations fund billions of dollars for medical research. Last year the Jerry Lewis Telethon netted a $60.500.000. The Manhattan project was for a weapon of Mass Destruction, I'm sure you could get Osama Bin Laden to provide funding today. That was a stupid analogy.

The Clinton administration certainly allowed and funded stem cell research. In fact here is an article from what would appear to be a rabbidly right wing site decrying that the Bush administration didn't do enough to GET RID of stem cell funding programs enacted under Clinton.

Nice propoganda, but "allowed" and actually "funded" are two different things. Clinton allocated no funds whatsoever.

Most of what you're asking for here, for US organizations at least, is at http://www.guidestar.org/

501(c)3 organizations are required to file IRS Form 990, 'Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax', if the organziation's gross receipts are over $25,000 per year.
Form 990 will include functional expenses, a balance sheet and the salaries of board members and key employees. There is a great primer on how to read a Form 990 here.
Any 501(c)3 should be able to provide you a copy of their latest Form 990, and the IRS should also have a copy. Going those routes may be a bit arduous, so you can also use Guidestar, an organization that focuses on "...on facilitating access to information about the operations and finances of nonprofit organizations."

Full disclosure: I work for an environmental non-profit.

The Sacramento Bee did a series on environmental orgs and their practices, the good ones, the bad apples titled Environment, Inc. An article from the series, "Mission adrift in a frenzy of fund raising" cited some statistics related to how much fundraising overhead eats up contributions, and came up with 42% for the Sierra Club from IRS form 990 info and American Institute of Philanthropy. I just wish I could be a member of the local, and not fund a big marketing machine. I think the American Institute of Philathropy and Guidestar are pretty good places to start for info. Perhaps they have info on the mailing list sharing that goes on between these npos.

Kinda late... but here is where you can donate help this kind of thing.

Paypal does suck sometimes, and they do have many examples of using dubious business practices. So what? Big deal. I don't think they lost any money, did they? Why doesn't Freenet just publicize that they can accept money through NetworkForGood.org? From their website:

Network for Good is the Internet's leading charitable resource -- an e-philanthropy site where individuals can donate, volunteer and get involved with the issues they care about. The organization's goal is to connect people to charities via the Internet -- using the virtual world to deliver real resources to nonprofits and communities.

Founded in 2001 by the Time Warner Foundation and AOL, Inc.; the Cisco Foundation and Cisco Systems, Inc.; and Yahoo! Inc., Network for Good is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Vienna, VA.

In addition to connecting the public with opportunities to give, Network for Good works to advance nonprofit adoption of the Internet as a tool for fundraising, volunteer recruitment and community engagement. It represents a groundbreaking partnership with leading technology and media companies and more than 20 nonprofit foundations and associations who share the desire to foster the informed use of the Internet for civic participation and philanthropy.

You can donate to their 501c3 organization here, I believe.

It is probably worth asking the FSF to publish it themselves.

yes, they have over two billions dollars.

and they are a horrible institution. (i went to school there) tutition is outrageous, and students are treated as an unfortunate side-effect of being a money-grubbing whore-house. don't go there. ever.

Just as a quick little not on this topic. If you are ever interested in just how much the top 5 employees and administrators make at a specific non-profit organization, there is a gem of a website called Guidestar Just search the website for the non profit, then read the IRS Form 990, which is essentially the organization's tax return. Fun stuff (I think the site now requires free registration, but then again, what doesn't today....)

I am not an accountant (IANAA?), so perhaps someone could explain why sitting on the best part of $1m cash is a good way to operate a non-profit whose turnover is half that? How do these figures compare with for-profit organisations? As the site says, if assets significantly outstrip liabilities (presumably a difference that has to be considered in relation to annual cash flow to determine if it is a "big" difference or not) then the organisation may not be putting its resources to best use.

I am not an accountant (IANAA?), so perhaps someone could explain why sitting on the best part of $1m cash is a good way to operate a non-profit whose turnover is half that? How do these figures compare with for-profit organisations? As the site says, if assets significantly outstrip liabilities (presumably a difference that has to be considered in relation to annual cash flow to determine if it is a "big" difference or not) then the organisation may not be putting its resources to best use.

It is targeted primarily at people who are interested in donating to charity, but would also be ideal for looking for employment since it hosts the addresses of all nonprofit organizations that file with the IRS (all U.S. nonprofits earning more than $25,000 per annum are required to file) as well as information voluntarily provided by organizations that do not file.

Technical skills can be put to good use in charity work. It's not a matter of choosing to give luxury items like computers to people who really need medicine. The organizations can use the skills to meet logistical challenges and to keep operating costs low - ensuring that the most resources go towards those that need them.

This in just another example of one of the many benefits that Arsdigita has contributed to the community. I have been following their Open Source toolkit they use for building online communities and they were influential in convincing AOL to Open Source AOLServer which after evaluated multiple web servers I decided as being the perfect tool for my own web site. The company also has a foundation encouraging young people to build community beneficial sites that gives out a scholarship every year. The company also has a track record for building sites that are *useful* to society ie an environmental aware site and adopt a pet site and an online charity site and an online legal resouce for consumers and the list goes on. They additional continually offer 1 day, 2 day, 3 week free training courses on their own Open Source software. I for one am happy to see that in todays society where corporations are constantly known for their despicable deeds am happy to see a company that gives back. I personally have gleaned much from their resources and would just like to say thanx.