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Authenticity of International Help Organizations?

Posted by Cliff on from the are-they-legit dept.

UlfJack wonders: "I've been thinking about donating money, especially to organizations like Plan USA, who are doing what they can to help people in Third World countries. However I found it very difficult to check the authenticity of these organizations, so I'm trying to cross-check multiple independent sources. Has anyone figured out an easy way to do this?"

5 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Simple. by tod_miller · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Go to av.com, google.com, amazon.com and look for the organisation that they recommend.

    Basically, trust comes not through computing, but through inplied trust.

    You trust google to know which companies to link to.

    Of course, a centralised website should exist that gives an easy API for charities to take donations, give feedback, be accountable and of course, this should be government run, and be worldwide, and have the IRS (the only people you can really trust when it comes ot money, and by IRS I mean the inland revenue of your country) poking at it with a big stick.

    that is my opinion. for now, look at av.com and donate to thier link button.

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
    1. Re:Simple. by JohnFluxx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's wrong with "buying a service" instead?
      Just because you want to help others doesn't mean you can't help yourself as well. Consider all the aid workers that get paid to do their work.

  2. Re:CBF certification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's the nature of Amnesty International's work, though, that they would seem to have high overhead. AI's purpose is to bring the spotlight of world attention to political prisoners and to publicize human rights abuses, and a lot of that may well fall under "advertising."

  3. Google for $ORGANIZATION fraud by nixman99 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    or complaints, investigation, etc. This gives you a good idea of how much negativity they generate.

  4. Re:What also bothers me by Arcane_Rhino · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Even with their overhead, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) does fantastic work.

    They were also the only (at least the only that I heard of) charity that publicly announced when they had received enough for the Tsunami effort. Though they took a lot of heat for this announcement from other charities, their spokesman indicated that people had to be confident that the organization's integrity was beyond reproach.

    I found this very impressive and it encouraged me to donate to them for other causes.