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IRS issues reminders about charities and other tax-exempt organizations

The IRS issued Tax Tip 2010-59 today, providing good reminders for donors about charities and other tax-exempt organizations. The reminders include public availability of IRS information returns and donor lists, finding organizations, sorting out where donations are deductible (or not deductible) as charitable contributions, and reporting of inappropriate activities by organizations.

Read the full [...]

Free guide to analyzing charities available online

The little blue book, a thought-provoking 59-page guide recently published by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), is now available for free online. Continue reading “Free guide to analyzing charities available online”

Vetted choices for Haiti-related donations

Drawing from its existing listings of large charities, CharityNavigator has done a nice job pulling together information on charities responding to the devastating Haiti earthquake. More than 40 of the charities have CharityNavigator’s 4 star (top) rating.

Read the CharityNavigator article.

Charities and the “12 Scams of Christmas”

The list highlights “charitable phishing scams” — e-mails that appear to be from legitimate charities. “Not only will they take your money and deprive charities of needed funds, but they will also steal your credit card information and identity.”

Read Larry Magid’s article at CNET News.

Class: Do Good Better

We’ve created unique new 25- to 60-minute class, great for service clubs and other community groups that have regular speakers. Here’s our brief description:

It’s never been more important to give to charity.

As government services continue to decline, people depend more and more on charities for education, hospital, social and other needed services. [...]

Top Tips for Avoiding “Charity” Scammers

Avoiding “charity” scammers is an important part of smart giving.

Every dollar scam “charities” take in is a dollar that could instead have gone to a strong charity doing valuable work with the funds entrusted to it.

Join our Serious Givers email group now and we’ll send you our Top Tips for Avoiding [...]

The Smarter Giving Guide to Finding Key Charity Information


2012 UPDATE: All versions of The Smarter Giving Guide are now out of print. The core concepts of the Guide have been incorporated into the free www.SeriousGivers.org website.


Charities publish an immense amount of data in their IRS Form 990 returns each year. The giver’s challenge has been to find and evaluate the key information tucked away in those returns. We’ve created a new guide to help givers meet that challenge.

The Smarter Giving Guide to Finding Key Charity Information helps you Continue reading “The Smarter Giving Guide to Finding Key Charity Information”