Before you write that check to a Catholic non profit do some research

Catholic Answers needs  help and has launched an appeal.  I've never cared for them but that's not what this post is about. I hate it when I get e-mails that try to make me feel guilty or campaingns that try to make me feel like I'm a bad Catholic if I don't support a certain Catholic organization or business. Remeber that St. Therese movie from a few years back? Remember how we were all urged to support it? Remember how bad it was?

Every tax-exempt organization, nonexempt charitable trust, and section 527 political organization is required by law to to file an annual  form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service. This form spells out an organization's financials and you should always look for it. To do this you can go to the IRS charitable organization search page. The IRS site is free but clunky and slow. I really like GuideStar.org and tend to go to it first. You have to register but that's free and GuideStar organizes the information so that you can get to the point at a glance. Another site that I've recently started using is FoundationCenter.org It is not as visually appealing as GuideStar but you don't have register and it's just as fast. You can also go to the National Center for Charitable Statistics site.