The Way to Choose a Donation Organization: Our Love Won’t Be Abused

We love public welfare, but sometimes we don't know how to make the best use of our donations. Whether it's for individuals or organizations, we don't want our love to be wasted on some untrusted establishments. How to select the most appropriate organization is the most time-consuming task. Here are some basic rules for doing this work.

The selected charity must have credibility. Because people give money to public organizations, they believe that money could have a better spent than used by themselves. Public welfare organization credibility should have two pillars: regulate governance and transparency.

(The 7 ‘Principles’ provide the basis to ‘transparency’.)

First of all, regulating governance includes whether the public welfare organization has the legal subject status, whether the internal operation is standardized, whether there are professional operation teams, standardized personnel, financial system and so on. Second, open transparency includes financial transparency and third-party monitoring and evaluation results. Transparency refers to the disclosure of basic information, such as governance information, annual financial reports, and organizational dynamic activities. Third-party monitoring and assessment results relate to both the project evaluation report and the financial audit report.

And then we should consider the project. The effectiveness, sustainability, and reproducibility of the project are critical. Does effectiveness mean that the project benefits the beneficiaries as scheduled? What are the positive effects on stakeholders? Sustainability refers to whether the project is sustainable after the project is completed and the capital is stopped. Reproducibility means the availability of project experience in other areas.

Here I propose the Philadelphia Mural Arts as our donation object.

(Peace Wall, by Jane Golden and Peter Pagast. 1308 South 29th Street (at Wharton St.) )

Transparency: The Mural Arts Philadelphia operates in a completely transparent environment. They have full disclosure of information about their activities, finances, and personnel, which do not have any artificial concealment or omission. The most important of these is their financial transparency, which usually requires professional financial personnel to organize financial management activities. Their annual reports reveal their positive financial conditions and present the obvious and direct results of their visual aesthetic arts on walls. All donations go to their Annual Fund unless otherwise specified. Every donor can have other ways to designate their gift.

(The List of Individual Donors in Mural Arts Philadelphia's 2016 Annual Report)

Professional: It's different from starting a business. The organization's public welfare requires Mural Arts to have different working methods from other organizations in the field of activity, and to make more outstanding achievements than others. As I mentioned in another article: “There is clear, open, and accessible communication between partners, making it an ongoing priority to listen to each need, to develop a common language, and to validate or clarify terms. When I read the book, Philadelphia Murals and The Stories They Tell, I was surprised that in order to create a good community environment, they knock on doors to listen to the opinions of the masses. Mural Arts focuses on the feedback from all stakeholders and artists in the partnership with the goal of continuously improving the relationship and outcomes.” We could see that Mural Arts is a responsible organization which usually keeps close contact with the donor and gives feedback on where the money is going. It's also important to see if Mural Arts has done this before.

(New Call To Artists)

Ability of the organization: Then we need to understand the person and ability of organization leader. The operation of mural arts is inevitably accompanied by large and small projects and activities. It is suggested that we give small donations first, take part in one or two activities, feel the indicators of these aspects in detail, and then consider long-term cooperation.

The most significant and practical thing for us is the sense of participation. Through a semester of effort, it is our strength that brings together this fund. No matter what the final decision is, as long as the results are satisfactory, they will not fail to live up to their efforts. And the good result will make us feel that everyone is a part of this program. That might be the point.

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