Following Florence's path across the Carolinas and the southeastern United States, there has been an outpouring of support from people who desire to donate time and money to those in need.
That's the good news. The bad news is there are scammers and illegitimate charities that seek to mislead those with good intentions.
Or as Charity Navigator COO Larry Lieberman put it, "It's very hard to be a donor today."
HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY "GOOD" CHARITIES
Charity Navigator is a non-profit that analyzes and judges other non-profits.
"Our analysts work all year long," Lieberman said. "An evaluation of a charity by us includes multi-year financial evaluations, which include fundraising, overhead administration etc... But most completely it's judged on it's effectiveness of the work the organization has done."
On their site right now, there are links to more than 50 national and local charities that they've ranked.
Those curious about how a group spends their donations can look on the site and see what percentage of their total budget goes towards helping those in need vs. administrative costs etc...
CROWDFUNDING
Crowdfunded sites like GoFundMe.com and donation pages on Facebook are more difficult to Verify as they're not non-profit and don't have to report where their money goes.
GoFundMe has created a page of Florence related funds that they have vetted.
Additionally, they offer a donation guarantee that "in the rare case that something isn't right," they'll refund your donation.
Facebook did not respond to VERIFY'S request for comment but they also wrote online about a guarantee that "all funds are returned to their donors, if a personal fundraiser is removed from Facebook prior to payout."
FTC TIPS
While you can feel fairly confident that the charities that are vetted by sources like Charity Navigator are using your money wisely, the Federal Trade Commission also offers some tips.
They offer some ways to identify a scam and ways to do deeper research.
That information can be found by clicking here.
