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The GiveRadar blog

Guides, explainers and updates from GiveRadar: what to verify before you give, how to read nonprofit financials, and which signals actually mean something. Written from the same official registry data the rest of GiveRadar runs on.

Written by Matt Timmermans, founder of GiveRadar

Latest articles

7 articles
Guide12 min read Nonprofit due diligence: an 11-step checklist for vetting any charity

The checklist grantmakers, donor-advised funds and advisors use before disbursing funds: registration, financials, governance and red flags, in order.

Guide10 min read How to spot charity fraud: 9 red flags and a verification guide

The most common warning signs of fake and fraudulent charities, and the step-by-step checks that separate a real nonprofit from an impersonator.

Press release5 min read GiveRadar partners with Stichting Donateursbelangen

Charity pages on donateursbelangen.nl now link through to GiveRadar profiles, and Donateursbelofte signatories show that commitment on GiveRadar.

Guide3 min read How to check if a charity is legitimate

A step by step way to verify any charity before you donate: which registers to check, what the filings tell you, and the red flags worth acting on.

Research3 min read Best charities to donate to in 2026

How to narrow the field by cause, country, and financial health, using disclosure and transparency signals rather than someone else's ranking.

Explainer3 min read Charity overhead ratio explained

What overhead actually measures, why a low ratio is not the same as a good charity, and how to read a spending breakdown without being misled.

Checklist3 min read How to verify a nonprofit organization

Registration status, tax exempt status, filing history, and officer records: a complete checklist you can work through for any organization.

How to use these guides

Start with the register, not the story

Most advice about choosing a charity starts with the cause. These guides start somewhere less obvious: the public record. Before a mission statement means anything, it is worth knowing whether the organization is registered, whether it files accounts, and whether anyone independent has checked them.

Every guide here is written against the same official registry data that powers the rest of GiveRadar, so the checks described are ones you can run yourself. Where a signal is weaker than it looks, the guide says so rather than turning it into a rule.

What we do not do

No rankings, no sponsored placements

GiveRadar does not sell placement and charities cannot pay to change how they appear. The guides point at evidence you can verify: filing history, governance disclosures, and the registry entry itself. If a claim cannot be traced back to a source, it does not belong in a guide.

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