Is it any good?

There are three big questions to ask of any charity before giving to it.

1. Is it legal? To check, look it up the charity on the Charity Commission for England and Wales’s Online Register. If it’s a Scottish charity, try the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. If a charity appears on either of these lists, it means it’s under the regulators’ beady eye. If it’s an outfit based in Northern Ireland, however, you’ll just have to cross your fingers: for the time being, the province has no charity regulator.But if your favoured outfit operates on the mainland and isn't registered, you've should ask why.
2. Is it behaving well? There are a few self-regulatory schemes that charities ought to belong to. The most important is the Fundraising Standards Board. This outfit regulates the fundraising efforts of its members – and, though it’s as weak as regulators get, it’s better than nothing. More importantly, if a charity isn’t a member, that’s not a good sign.
3. Do you like what it does? You’ll have to use your judgement here, but we can point you in the right direction. Asking yourself a few more questions, in fact, might speed things along. Like:
1. Does the charity have a clear set of objectives, and a realistic way of achieving them?
2. Do the charity’s activities clearly match its objectives?
3. Does it consider the views of its beneficiaries when planning and implementing its activities?
4. Does it evaluate the results of its work, to make sure it’s actually making a difference?
5. Does it have enough cash – or does it have reason to be confident about raising enough cash – to finish the projects it’s got planned?
6. And, if you want to delve even deeper, ask the charity all the 43 questions we ask of them when coming up with our charity profiles.

Finally, we’d add that there’s only one reliable source of information on any charity: its annual report. This document is required by law to be truthful, and bigger charities have theirs audited to make sure the charity isn’t telling any porkies. Charity websites and ‘annual reviews’ aren’t subject to this truth test. So, look up your favoured charity on the Charity Commission’s site, and download its annual report from the Commission’s database. And if you still can’t find an answer, give the charity a ring. If they can’t answer your questions, they almost certainly don’t deserve your cash.