Here are the best ways to look up nonprofits and judge whether you want to give to them or not without any bias: google Guide Star and go to their webpage and type in the name of the nonprofit you want to find, next go to the financials tab and clic “Tax Form 990” this form tells you literally E V E R Y T H I N G about the nonprofit- it tells you who is on the board, what money went where in the fiscal year, how much everyone got paid, and most importantly: how viable the organisation is. If you want your dollars to do the most good, that tax form is your key to unlocking every single detail of every dollar spent by the nonprofit.
Philanthropic Studies student chiming in to add that these advocacy organizations need to pay people to do the work that they are promising to do. They also need equipment to work with and space to put it in. This stuff is known as “overhead” and it tends to get a very bad rap in conversations like these.
Excessive salaries are certainly an issue in the sector but it has also sparked a rather nasty trend that harms smaller nonprofits (like the ones referenced above) that are trying to do something other than living hand-to-mouth: the assumption that “no/low overhead” = “good nonprofit”
It’s known as the Nonprofit Starvation Cycle and I tend to get extremely fighty about it because it is so damaging.
Do your research (I adore Guidestar) but remember to look beyond the percentage spent on overhead/salaries. It doesn’t tell the whole story.
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