Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Rating the Charities in Times of Need

With many people interested in helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina and with stories of charity scams in the news, it seems a good time to remind library users that they can research their charities before they write their checks. At the Thomas Ford Memorial Library, we subscribe to Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog, quarterly publication that also has a website. Other online sources to check are Charity Navigator (which has some nice articles on avoiding scams) and Give.org (which is a service of the Better Business Bureau).

By the way, libraries that are collecting for hurricane relief should check to make sure the funds they are passing on get into the right hands. We, too, should do our homework.

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