3 Things To Consider Before Donating to an Educational Charity or School Group

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Before you make a donation to an educational non-profit organization or school, like St Anne Catholic School, you need to do your homework and make sure that your donation will be used appropriately and for the purpose that it was intended. Here are three things to check out and consider before you go through with a donation to a non-profit education organization.

#1 How Much of Your Money Will Be Used To Further the Mission

The first thing that you need to take into consideration is how your money is going to be used. How much of every dollar is going to be used to further the mission statement of the educational non-profit? How much money is going directly towards providing education?

On the flip side of that, make sure you also know how much of every dollar donated is used for administrative purposes and for recruiting more donors. Good non-profit organizations put most of their money back into their cause, not into administrative costs and advertising efforts. However, it is important to realize that there are always going to be some overhead costs associated with running an organization. About three-quarters of the money raised should go toward the actual mission objective of the organization and about a quarter should go toward overhead costs.

#2 Find Out What Services They Actually Provide

Second, take some time to figure out what services they actually provide the community. In regards to an educational non-profit, do they provide scholarships for children to attend private schools? Do they provide after-school programs? Do they help support the families of children in need?

Find out what services they actually provide their communities, and make sure that the services that they provide line up with their mission statement, make an impact, and are actions that you support.

Next, see if they have done any studies about the impact of the services that they provide. Do they have evidence that their organization has had an impact on the community they serve? For example, have students improved test scores or seen a decrease in involvement in crime? Look for measurable results.

#3 Check Their Charity Ratings

There are a variety of different websites and applications that allow you to check on charity ratings. These charity ratings let you know how the charity spends its money and what it actually does. Basically, it verifies the first two points above from an outside perspective. It allows you to check and make sure that what the charity told you was also accurate. These types of rating systems exist for private school as well. 

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8 May 2017