By MOAA Staff

When you decide to support a charity purportedly benefitting active duty military, veterans and their families, you want to ensure your gift will actually support that cause. “Just because a charity has a legitimate-sounding name or uses pictures of people in uniform, it actually may or may not support the cause it advertises,” says Col. Mike Turner, USAF (Ret.), MOAA's vice president of development. “Doing research ahead of time will ensure your donation goes where you intend it to.”

Turner offers these six tips to consider before making a donation to a charity:

1. Check GuideStar, a nonprofit organization that lists financial information reported by charities, and specifically check its rating, a measure of how transparent the organization is with its governance.
“They provide all the information you need to assess the legitimacy of a nonprofit,” Turner says. “Make sure you type in the exact name of the organization or you may have to scroll through several similar entries. Also, be careful. Many organizations, like MOAA, have hundreds of independent chapters, so make sure you get the parent organization.”

The MOAA Scholarship Fund has a Platinum Guidestar rating, and the MOAA foundation has a Gold rating. Help military and veteran families by donating to your favorite MOAA Charity today at www.moaa.org/donate.

2. Check Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofit organizations. Unlike GuideStar, Charity Navigator rates only nonprofits with annual revenues greater than $1 million.

3. Scan IRS Form 990. Turner checks for the length of the company's existence; how the nonprofit has performed year-over-year; program expenses, management expenses and fundraising expenses; and number of board members.

4. Check the charity's website. Turner says he looks for clearly defined programs and specific activities the nonprofit is engaged in. “I've been to nonprofit websites with a very professional look, but which actually reveal a nonprofit with very few programs,” he says. “This isn't necessarily a show-stopper, but again, it's a warning flag causing me to look deeper.”

5. Search complaints. One of the easiest ways to do that, Turner says, is to type the name of the charity and the word “complaints” into Google. He also suggested going to Glassdoor.com for information about the charity's track record. “Once again, complaints are not necessarily a problem,” Turner says. “An organization with four complaints over the past 10 years is probably fine; an organization with four complaints over the past year may not be.”

6. Network through LinkedIn. Turner suggests typing the name of the nonprofit in LinkedIn and finding connections with people who are familiar with the nonprofit's work. Then contact them about the organization. “You'd be amazed what you can learn from an insider's perspective,” Turner says.