TM GUIDE WISEAPUBLICATIONOFTHEBBBWISEGIVINGALLIANCE:GIVINGHOLIDAY 2009 Volunteering INSIDE How to Read the 8 List of National ® 2 Volunteering Charities Q&A About 46 the Alliance A Publication of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance National Charity 47 9 Seal Program List of Nationally Soliciting Charities Standards 48 for Charity The Wise Giving Guide is published quarterly to help Accountability donors make more informed giving decisions. This guide includes a compilation of the latest evaluation conclusions completed by the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. BBB Wise Giving Alliance BBB Wise Giving Alliance Board of Directors Staff If you would like to see a Douglas Bauer – Chair H. Art Taylor particular topic discussed Clark Foundation • New York, NY President and CEO in this guide, please email suggestions to Marcus Owens – Treasurer Bennett M. Weiner Caplin & Drysdale • Washington, DC Chief Operating Officer [email protected] or write to us at the Thomas M. Bartholomy – Secretary Kelley Bevis address below. Better Business Bureau / Charlotte • Charlotte, NC Research Analyst Evelyn Brody Nora Burrows HOLIDAY ISSUE 2009 Chicago-Kent College of Law • Chicago, IL Research Analyst Margery S. Bronster Margery K. Heitbrink BBB Wise Giving Alliance Bronster Hoshibata • Honolulu, HI Editor, Wise Giving Guide 4200 Wilson Blvd. Michelle L. Corey Jean Lewis Suite 800 Better Business Bureau / St. Louis • St. Louis, MO Administrative Coordinator Arlington, VA 22203 John Edie Edward Loftin (703) 276-0100 PriceWaterhouseCoopers • Washington, DC Research Analyst www.bbb.org/charity John H. Graham IV Gayle S. Lorenz American Society of Association Executives • Research Analyst Washington, DC Wise Giving Guide Layout and Julie A. Rizzo Irv Katz Director of Development Production — art270, inc. National Human Services Assembly • Washington, DC Rebecca Uwaifo Publication No. 11-24-503 Cheryl Lamm Research Analyst McMaster-Carr Supply Company • Elmhurst, IL Shawn Van Gorder Staff members from the David E. Ormstedt Associate Director, affiliated Council of Better Wiggin & Dana • Hartford, CT Charity Evaluation Business Bureaus, Inc., provide Joseph R. Reynolds administrative, personnel, Communications Consultant • Battle Creek, MI media, accounting, information H. Art Taylor - Ex-Officio technology, legal and office BBB Wise Giving Alliance • Arlington, VA services to the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. Copyright 2009 BBB Wise Giving Alliance The name Better Business Bureau is a registered service mark of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. president’s MESSAGE ost often I use this space to comment on aspects of charities’ operations from a donor’s perspective. This time I’d like to speak from a recipient charity’s point of view. MThat recipient is of course the Alliance. Like most charities, we have learned that in these stressful times, past giving patterns no longer hold. It is far more costly to identify new donors and to keep present ones than it once was. In this climate we are especially heartened by your gifts and your confidence in our work. Among the gifts made to us this year was a generous bequest from Harriet Seymour, a long-time supporter of the Alliance who, like you, received the Wise Giving Guide regularly. We are deeply appreciative of this gift, which arrived coincidentally just as our August Guide article on charitable bequests was published. But we are no less grateful for the contributions that you have sent us. They enable us to produce the evaluative reports summarized in the Guide listing. They help us continue to promote accountability throughout the charitable sector. I am sure that many of you give your time and talent to charity, or are thinking about it, and I hope that you’ll find useful the perspectives on volunteering that we include in this issue. I hope as well that like many volunteers, you discover that your charitable work brings you incalculable rewards. Thank you for the loyalty and generosity you have shown us this year. All of us at the Alliance wish you happiness and peace in 2010. H. Art Taylor, President Wise Giving : HOLIDAY 2009 1 ith the need for charities’ services straining donate time to charity is in many ways similar to their resources, the call for volunteers this deciding to make a cash contribution. You want to Wyear is especially intense. It comes with know that the charity you’re considering is accountable. more urgency, and from new sources. Exhortations to You want to know that it will use your time and talent serve issue regularly from the White House and other effectively. And of course you want to have a good grasp government offices. Volunteerism has a role in over 60 of the work it’s trying to do. national TV programs during a full week in October. You’ll also want to know, if you’re not already Multiple Web sites list opportunities for service, where serving, about how to find the opportunities open to visitors can apply at the click of a mouse. It’s not even you. You’ll be concerned about how to be an effective necessary to surf and search; if you’re in an online volunteer. You’ll like, perhaps, to have some perspective social network, ways to serve may come to you. on volunteerism as a whole, including the problems it faces. You might even want to know if your donated efforts can affect your taxes. Much of what you’ve been seeing or hearing focuses Below, then, you’ll find not only a few suggestions on the very real benefits, challenges, satisfactions and about where to look and how to choose but some wider even joys of volunteering. These are hard to exaggerate, angles on volunteering: and they’re deeply familiar. History has left us vivid • If you want to volunteer, what should you consider images of American volunteers, from those neighborly before you apply? barn raisings in the 1800’s, bandage-rolling in World • What should you expect of the charities when you War I, canteens for armed service personnel in World offer your time and talent? War II, Mothers’ Marches to combat polio in the 50’s • What should they expect of you? and today’s Habitat for Humanity home builders. • How many of us actually volunteer—and what holds But such stories can give an incomplete picture of the others back? what volunteering entails. Call them nuts and bolts or • Why is volunteering, with so many potential rewards the nitty-gritty, there are aspects of giving service, for both charity and volunteer, not always a win-win beyond the inspiring images, that any prospective arrangement? volunteer will want to consider. In fact, deciding to • Can charities have too many volunteers? 2 Into the volunteering about? What are your special skills? Do you want to marketplace use them or try something new? How much time do If you desire to serve but don’t know where, you’ll you want to give? How far do you want to travel to find a world of open opportunities on the Web. your work site? Whether you contemplate finding work you’d like to do And it’s not selfish to think about your immediate online or already know of possibilities in your motives. Do you want to fill empty hours, oblige a neighborhood, the Web offers a great overview of both friend, build the basis of a new career or work your way specific jobs and all kinds of advice and research. into a particular social group? Such reasons need not be Several of these sites are listed in the box on page 7. disqualifying, but acknowledging them doesn’t hurt. Pursuing openings online is easy. Most of the sites ask you for your location (zip code, usually) and your Almost certainly, though, you have reasons that run much deeper, and that will sustain you: you want to “give back” for help you, your friends or family have received, or to help further a cause you believe in. You interests, sometimes with a drop-down list of “job” want to make a difference. possibilities, along with the time periods you wish. You Just as you want to be an informed giver when your might choose such categories as animals, veterans, donation is made in cash, you want the same for your mentoring, etc. Some sites allow you to apply for a volun- gift of time and talent. If a charity you’re considering is teer opening by email to the advertising charity; others unfamiliar to you, investigate. Write or call and ask send the information you provide directly to the charity. questions. If it has a Web site, study it. Check with your Of course applying does not guarantee acceptance. state charity regulator to see whether it is properly There are occasional roadblocks: Internet links to registered. Try www.bbb.org/charity for information. more information about certain listings are dead, Finally, think about the commitment you’re willing possibly because the opening is no longer available. to make. Volunteering can be fun, but at root it is You’ll find overlap, too, as charities often post their serious. What volunteers do can have consequences, volunteer openings on several sites. good or bad, for the charities that employ them and, Before you even turn on the computer, though, ask more importantly, for the causes they exist to serve. If yourself some serious questions. What kind of work you say you’ll help stuff envelopes and don’t show up, a interests you? What causes do you feel passionate strategically planned mailing schedule may be Wise Giving : HOLIDAY 2009 3 disrupted. If you’ve promised to help teach other school through bad check writing, forgery, grand theft volunteers but back out, you may have turned away and money laundering.