To complete our national charity evaluations, BBB Wise Giving Alliance asks organizations to complete a detailed online form and also submit supporting documents about their finances and activities. Charities that do not provide any of the requested information, despite repeated written requests, are called “nondisclosure charities.”  Our reports on these organizations have a literal red flag, a red exclamation mark, along with an explanation about this lack of cooperation. 

Yesterday, September 15^th, we issued a release on this subject to help bring the public’s attention to this type of report result.  In part, we were prompted to do so after recognizing that recent government actions taken against charity fraud cases showed that most of the organizations cited were organizations that had nondisclosure reports on our Give.org website. 

We are not suggesting that all nondisclosure groups are involved in such bad behaviors, but we do warn donors to be extremely cautious when contributing to charities that have not provided BBB WGA with any of the requested information. 

Due to the broad scope of the 20 BBB Standards for Charity Accountability we require much more than just an annual tax return (the IRS Form 990) in order to complete our rigorous evaluations. This also reflects our long-held belief that finances alone do not provide the full picture of a charity’s accountability.  To learn more about our efforts to encourage charity disclosure, click here. 

On a separate note, as part of our Building Trust Video Series we are pleased to provide a video that features Michelle DeLaune, Chief Operating Officer of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (a BBB Accredited Charity).  This organization works closely with families of missing children to help rescue and recover them and also seeks to help prevent child sexual exploitation. 

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: 

• Action Against Hunger
• Autism Society of America
• Shiloh International Ministries 

Finally, remember to let us know by going to https://give.org/ask-us-about-a-charity1/ 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