Thinking of Making a Donation to a Charity?
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Have you ever made an impulse donation to a charity, and wished you'd been able to find out a bit more about them first?
Have you ever put your loose change in a charity collection bucket, received a thank-you sticker and then wondered whether giving up your coffee that morning really made a difference to the people, abused animals or part of the planet that you wanted to help?
Now you can search the new online Charities Register, maintained by the Charities Commission, to find out just what did happen to those coins or notes you gave away or how much your favourite charity spent (or was funded) to carry out its good work.
Since the Charities Register opened in February 2007, it has been populated with the details of almost 22,000 charities that are willing to make their financial and other information easily available to you – "the public".
Being relatively new, it's not yet widely known that anyone can search the Register at www.charities.govt.nz to find out details about specific charities - for example, their activities, charitable purpose, and financial position.
The Register is available to help you make better-informed decisions about charities you may wish to support financially, volunteer to help, or whose services you may want to use.
If a charity is on the Register, it has proved to the Charities Commission that it has a charitable purpose, and its name and officers comply with the Charities Act. The "live" Register makes it easy to see a charity's rules, contact details, a list of its governing officers, financial and other information.
You can ask any charity for its registration number and go straight to it, or do a search using its name or other criteria.
If you want to find a charity but don't know which one exactly, the Register's help notes explain how you can search by location, activities, beneficiaries and so on. So, if you want to support a local charity, or one that works with animals, for example, you can ask the Register to give you a list.
However, if you think the Register can be used to develop a lengthy mailing list; then think again! The Charities Commission has made sure that no-one can easily use the Register to develop mailing lists to "spam" large numbers of charities with letters or emails.
Registration is voluntary, so not all charities will choose to register and the Charities Commission can restrict public access to certain information and documents if it considers it in the public interest to do so. This means that in a small number of cases, particular information will not be available.
Take a look the Register at www.charities.govt.nz sometime– it's interesting reading, and can give you peace of mind about how your donations are being used.
If you don't have internet access, you are welcome to call the Commission's free information line 0508 242 748 to ask if a charity is on the Register, or you can write to PO Box 8072, Wellington.