How to spot charity scammers without AI but with Google?

Registering a charity foundation is not easy, it's very easy. According to the ProCharity project, there are approximately 9,000 such organizations in Russia. And these are only those that operate officially. Can you trust them all? Definitely not. Can you recognize scammers with 100% certainty? More likely no than yes. But we'll try.

Over the years of working in charity, I have seen all sorts of things. The foundation's TG channel was forged (by the way, there was no support before that), mailings were made in our name, money was collected on personal cards for wards who had already been helped, and so on and so forth.

There are many ways to deceive gullible citizens, and new ones appear every day. Therefore, there is probably no point in talking about them. It would be much more productive to talk about how to check a potential fund for your donation. There are several ways, and unfortunately, none of them gives complete confidence. Let's arrange these methods in order of increasing effectiveness.

Date of registration – 20%

The older the fund, the higher the probability that it can be trusted. But nuances are important here. As I wrote above, registering a charitable organization is very simple. Therefore, it is imperative to look at what the fund has done over the years. This information is easy to find on the Internet. Funds do not hide their work, on the contrary, they talk about it very actively. After all, this is also a fundraising tool.

Reporting – 25%

The magic word that makes everyone melt. For some reason, the presence of reports on the Ministry of Justice website is perceived by many as ironclad proof of the fund's honesty and integrity. But this is not entirely true. The report can show zero movement of funds, and at the same time collect donations in cash or on a bank card. So, reporting to the Ministry of Justice and even an independent audit do not mean anything. But their absence is already an alarm bell.

Here you can view reports of any fund by name or identification number.

Information on the website – 30%

The organization's website must include: a physical address, current contacts, names of founders, details and identification number. Some of this may not be there. But if the foundation's website has no information at all, you should at least be wary.

Methods of transferring donations – 35%

Professional charitable foundations never collect donations on personal cards. And they almost never collect cash. Exceptions are special charity events, festivals and other events. And there, as a rule, volunteers have terminals for card payments. The reason is simple: cash donations are impossible to track at all. And all movements of funds on a special charity account of the foundation are checked, and quite strictly.

Sometimes parents of wards organize fundraising for additional expenses: accommodation, flights, food. After all, funds usually pay only for treatment, and directly to the clinic. Here you do everything at your own risk. Because parents are not required to report on fundraising, it is very difficult to check them. Funds are against such practices and this issue is discussed before the collection is opened. But after that, it is already difficult to influence the family. So such “private” collections are organized. And scammers use this, creating fake pages.

Fund activities – 40%

This is actually the most important criterion. But it is extremely difficult for an outsider (or even within the system) to check it. Many have heard about children with cerebral palsy, for whom unscrupulous funds collect millions for rehabilitation for years, and transfer several thousand.

As a rule, funds do not open repeated collections. And if they do, then only in exceptional cases. Therefore, first of all, check the lists of open/closed collections. They should be updated regularly.

Also, “good” funds talk about the course of treatment and the future fate of their wards for several years. Fraudsters, for obvious reasons, do not do this.

Social projects of banks – 50%

“Cashback for the good” from T-Bank or SberVmeste from one “green bank” is also a good indicator of the fund's honesty. Before adding an organization, banks check its activities. But, it must be said, they do not do this super carefully. Therefore, here it is 50/50. It is also important to understand that if the fund is not in any of these services, this does not mean anything. Perhaps the founders of the fund did not apply or they are still being checked.

Short SMS number for donations – 75%

You've all seen calls to send an SMS to a short number with the donation amount and save a life. It's very convenient and really works. Moreover, to get such a number from the operator, the fund needs to go through all the circles of hell. They check everything and everyone here, and thoroughly. So if the fund has such an option, you can trust it. About 75%.

Why is there no 100% reliable way to check a charity?

Unfortunately, even ideal informative reports, thousands of saved lives, several short numbers for donations do not give an absolute guarantee that the fund's activities are completely clean. There are always complex schemes for withdrawing money. You can always order advertising from a “friendly” individual entrepreneur and get a kickback, negotiate with a foreign hospital (yes, there are “smart” guys there too).

Therefore, participation in charity can never really be tied to cold calculations. It is emotions, empathy, compassion and, ultimately, trust. Moreover, if you see that children are being helped, treated and, as vulgar as it may sound, lives are really being saved, then what difference does it make whether the founder of the foundation took 5% or 7%?