Verifying a charity takes about twenty minutes and relies almost entirely on documents the organization is already required to file publicly. The five checks below move from cheapest to most involved, and the first one alone eliminates the majority of outright fraud. None of this requires specialized knowledge, and none of it depends on trusting the organization’s own description of itself.
1. Confirm the organization exists as the IRS knows it
Start with the Employer Identification Number, not the name. Names are unregulated and frequently duplicated, sometimes deliberately. A well-known charity often has several similarly named organizations operating in the same space, and the EIN is the only identifier that cannot be imitated.
Run the EIN through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool. The result tells you three things: whether the organization is currently recognized as tax exempt, what subsection it falls under, and whether contributions to it are deductible. Those are distinct facts. An organization can be tax exempt and still not be eligible to receive deductible contributions, which is true of social welfare organizations under section 501(c)(4) and of political organizations.
The same tool lists organizations whose exempt status was automatically revoked for failing to file required returns for three consecutive years. That list is worth checking even for organizations that look active, because revocation does not shut down a website.
If an organization cannot produce an EIN on request, stop there. Legitimate charities give it out immediately because they need donors to have it.
2. Read the Form 990
Most tax exempt organizations above a small revenue threshold file an annual Form 990, and those filings are public. They are also more readable than their length suggests if you know which parts to open.
Part I gives a one-page summary: total revenue, total expenses, net assets at the start and end of the year, and headcount. Compare revenue to expenses across two or three filings. An organization whose expenses consistently exceed revenue is drawing down reserves, which may be deliberate or may be a problem, but it is a question worth asking.
Part IX breaks expenses into program services, management and general, and fundraising. Part VII lists compensation for officers, directors, key employees, and the highest paid contractors. Schedule O carries the narrative explanations, and it is frequently where the interesting material sits, because that is where the organization has to explain anything unusual in its own words.
Two patterns deserve attention. First, a large share of expenses flowing to a single outside contractor, particularly a fundraising firm. Second, significant transactions with related parties, which Schedule L covers. Neither is automatically improper. Both are worth understanding before giving.
3. Check the classification, not just the status
Within section 501(c)(3) there are meaningful distinctions. Public charities and private foundations operate under different rules, different deduction limits for donors, and different levels of public accountability. Public charity status generally reflects broad public support rather than funding from a small number of sources.
The IRS determination letter states the organization’s classification, the subsection it was recognized under, the effective date of exemption, and whether contributions are deductible. Many organizations post the letter directly. Any organization that has one should be willing to send it.
The effective date is a useful piece of context on its own. A recently recognized organization is not suspect, but it will have a thinner filing history to evaluate, which means the other checks carry more weight.
4. Treat the overhead ratio as a question, not an answer
The program expense ratio, meaning the share of spending that goes to program services rather than administration and fundraising, is the most cited charity metric and the most misused one.
The number is easy to game. Expense allocation between program and administration involves genuine judgment, and joint cost allocation rules let organizations assign part of a fundraising appeal to program services if it carries educational content. Two organizations doing identical work can report materially different ratios based on accounting choices that are entirely permissible.
A low overhead ratio is also not good on its face. Organizations that underinvest in staff, systems, evaluation, and financial controls report attractive ratios and frequently deliver worse outcomes. An organization spending nothing on measuring whether its programs work cannot tell you whether its programs work.
Use the ratio as a prompt. If it is unusually high, ask what drove it, since a capital campaign or a startup year explains a great deal. If it is unusually low, ask what the organization spends on evaluation and infrastructure. The answer to either question is more informative than the ratio itself.
5. Check state registration and outside evaluators
Most states require charities that solicit donations from their residents to register with a state office, usually under the attorney general or secretary of state. Registration is a low bar, but failure to register while actively soliciting is a meaningful signal, and state databases sometimes carry enforcement actions that never surface anywhere else.
Independent evaluators add another view. They vary in method, and several lean heavily on the financial ratios discussed above, so read what a rating actually measures before weighting it. A rating built entirely on overhead reproduces that metric’s weaknesses with an authoritative number attached.
Published comparisons of organizations working in the same field can also be a reasonable starting point, provided you verify their claims rather than adopt them. One such side-by-side look at organizations working on poverty illustrates the format, and like any comparison it should be checked against the primary filings rather than taken at face value. The point of a comparison is to shorten the list you verify, not to replace verification.
A note on deductibility for 2026
Verification and deductibility are separate questions, and confirming one does not settle the other. According to IRS Topic no. 506, beginning with tax year 2026, filers who do not itemize may deduct up to $1,000 of cash contributions to certain qualified organizations, or $2,000 filing jointly. IRS Publication 505 for 2026 adds that itemizers may deduct only charitable contributions exceeding 0.5 percent of adjusted gross income, with amounts below that floor not deductible.
Both provisions apply to gifts to qualified organizations, which returns the matter to check number one. Anyone making decisions about their own return should work from the current IRS material for the applicable tax year rather than from a summary.
What the five checks actually buy
They do not tell you whether an organization is effective. No public filing answers that, and effectiveness is genuinely hard to establish even from the inside. What the checks establish is that the organization exists, is what it claims to be, files what it is required to file, and spends money in a pattern it is willing to describe publicly.
That is a floor, not a recommendation. But it is a floor that most misdirected giving fails to clear, and it costs twenty minutes.
