Before you give on GivingTuesday: a five-minute Form 990 check
GivingTuesday falls on December 1, 2026. If you're deciding where to give, the charity's own Form 990 answers more questions than most donation pages do. Here's a check you can do in five minutes for any charity on this site.
1. Is it the organization you think it is?
Look at the EIN (the nine-digit federal tax ID) and the city on the charity's page here, and compare them with the donation page you're on. Similar names are common: a national organization, its local chapters and its foundation are often separate legal entities with separate EINs and separate filings.
2. Where did $100 of spending go?
Every page starts with a bar showing how the charity split its expenses between program services, management and general, and fundraising, as it reported on Part IX of the form. The median for charities in the same cause is shown for context. A number far from the median is a reason to read the filing, not a verdict: a capital campaign, a startup year or an unusual business model can all move it.
3. Where does its money come from?
Some charities run mostly on donations; others mostly on fees, sales or government contracts. The revenue bar shows the mix. If a charity relies heavily on contributions, your gift is a larger part of how it operates.
4. What does it pay its top people?
Part VII lists compensation for officers, directors, key employees and the highest-paid staff. We show the roles and amounts; the filing has the names. Compare the largest figure with the organization's size, and look at the number of people paid more than $100,000.
5. What did it answer about governance?
Part VI asks whether the charity has a conflict-of-interest policy, a whistleblower policy, a process for setting executive pay and audited financial statements. These are the organization's own yes/no answers. A "no" isn't a finding of wrongdoing, and many charities explain their answers in Schedule O of the filing.
What a filing can't tell you
Form 990 reports money and governance, not results. To learn whether a program works, look for the charity's own impact reports and independent evaluations. And remember that the latest filing is often 10 to 22 months old.
Start with any charity: use the search box at the top of this page, or browse the 100 charities that raised the most.