Telephone Appeals
Get smart about charity telemarketing calls. Learn key questions to ask, how to verify legitimacy, and how to opt out of future calls.
Wise Giving Wednesday: Government Regulators & BBB Wise Giving Alliance
In its role as a standards-based charity evaluator, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance shares some common interests
with federal and state government regulators of charities. In part, both are seeking to help identify bad
actors and help the donating public in making wise giving decisions. Different tools, however, are being
used to accomplish this objective.
For government agencies, the monitoring of a charity’s compliance with laws and regulations covering charitable
solicitations and fundraising companies provide a basis for correcting abuses in the philanthropic marketplace.
For the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, the 20 BBB Standards for Charity Accountability enable us to complete comprehensive
evaluations that address such issues as charity governance, results reporting, finances, appeal accuracy
and donor privacy.
There are some key distinctions in the application of these different monitoring methods. Government agencies
can require charities to submit requested materials through annual charity registration and, if needed, issue
subpoenas for additional information to complete investigations. In contrast, BBB WGA relies on charities
to voluntarily furnish information to trained and experienced analysts and complete an extensive online questionnaire
to complete its standards assessment.
Another key difference is that while some of the BBB Standards for Charity Accountability capture elements of
fundamental malfeasance such as deceptive appeals or self-dealing, our standards also address broader trust
issues involving board oversight, website content or results reporting that go beyond legal requirements.
Both government agencies and BBB WGA hope to strengthen the public’s trust in philanthropy and help ensure that
contributions are used for the purposes for which they are solicited.
Video of the Week
As part of our Building Trust Video Series, we are pleased to provide a video featuring
Michael Roberts, President and CEO,
First Nations Development Institute
(a
BBB Accredited Charity
) which works to improve economic conditions for Native Americans through technical assistance and training,
advocacy and policy, and direct financial grants.
Recent Reports
We are always working with charities to publish or update reports for donors. Visit
Give.org
or local BBBs to check out any charity before giving. Our recently evaluated charities include:
Finally, remember to let us know by going to
give.org/charity-inquiry
if you are interested in seeing a report on a charity not on the list and we will do our best to produce one.
H. Art Taylor, President & CEO
BBB Wise Giving Alliance
