Ask the Right Questions

In my previous post I promised to give donors a few questions they should ask of any charity if they want to play a role in reversing the effects of benevolent oppression. You could think of these on your own if you simply consider the ways in which you'd like a charity to be accountable. So, here are some questions you can ask and the answers you should be looking for...

• Do you ever give money to people in need without asking for an account of how it is spent? (Answer: No or rarely. If it's rarely the follow-up question is,'Under what circumstances?' and 'Please define rarely. Clue: 20% of the time is not rarely.)
• When giving money to overseas missions what are your standard reporting requirements? (This depends on the frequency of the money being sent. If monthly there should be monthly written reports with every expenditure reported and every dollar accounted for. If less often, then a written report accounting for each time a sum of money is sent. In any case, the charity should be able to tell you what happened to every dollar they sent overseas.)
• How do you hold partner ministries accountable? (The aforementioned reporting is tool that must be used. Accountability measures explain what action is taken if the reporting does not happen or if the recipients fail to hold to established rules. Withholding funds is one method, requiring amended reports, all the way to direct personal visits or replacing the people who fail to follow the guidelines.) 
• Do the overseas ministries you support all have a detailed sustainability plan? (If they don't know what that means, that's an answer! You're looking for an explanation of their process for moving people to self-sufficiency.)
• Does your ministry provide donors a general breakdown of how all dollars are spent? (This can be found after the fact in an IRS 990, but the best charities can tell you in general terms their standard percentages for administration, marketing, and the actual work they claim to do. In most cases it's not fair to expect a detailed budget spreadsheet nor is it appropriate to ask for such.)

 There are many other questions you could ask. But these, especially the first four, will give you an idea as to whether or not this charity is contributing to benevolent oppression or holding people accountable and helping them move forward with your dollars. If there are charities doing this very well, please comment and give them some visibility. If there are some doing it really poorly, let us know about those, too.