--- title: Due Diligence Checklist group: For nonprofits and funders order: 4 summary: Check an organization against 25 questions on legitimacy, money, results, learning, its place in the system and red flags. Unknowns become questions to ask, and the report downloads as Markdown. status: live conditions: [overhead-myth, silence-about-failure, measurement-gap, missing-voice] help: - Improve a question or add a source with a pull request to src/data/due-diligence.json. - Suggest a public registry that answers one of the questions, for src/data/ecosystem.json. - Translate the checklist for donors and funders outside the United States, where the registries are different. related: [/tools/charity-lookup/, /tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/, /diagnosis/silence-about-failure/] sources: - title: Search for tax exempt organizations publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2026 url: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations - title: Automatic revocation of exemption publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2026 url: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/automatic-revocation-of-exemption - title: 'Churches, integrated auxiliaries and conventions or associations of churches' publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2026 url: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-integrated-auxiliaries-and-conventions-or-associations-of-churches note: Churches that meet section 501(c)(3) are tax-exempt without applying for recognition. - title: 'Exempt organizations general issues: Eligible charitable donees' publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2026 url: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-general-issues-eligible-charitable-donees note: Subordinates under a group ruling aren’t listed separately. - title: 'Annual exempt organization return: who must file' publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2026 url: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/annual-exempt-organization-return-who-must-file - title: 'Public disclosure and availability of exempt organizations returns and applications: Documents subject to public disclosure' publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2026 url: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-and-availability-of-exempt-organizations-returns-and-applications-documents-subject-to-public-disclosure - title: Instructions for Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (2025) publisher: Internal Revenue Service year: 2025 url: https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i990 note: Part III (program accomplishments), Part VI (governance), Part VII (compensation), Part IX (functional expenses) and Part XII (financial statements). - title: Before Giving to a Charity publisher: Federal Trade Commission year: 2025 url: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/giving-charity - title: National Association of State Charity Officials publisher: NASCO year: 2026 url: https://www.nasconet.org/ note: Registration and filing requirements differ from state to state. Accessed October 2026. - title: State Government publisher: National Association of State Charity Officials year: 2026 url: https://www.nasconet.org/resources/state-government/ note: Directory of state charity offices, accessed October 2026. - title: 3 Major Charity Groups Ask Donors to Stop Focusing on Overhead Costs publisher: The Chronicle of Philanthropy year: 2013 url: https://www.philanthropy.com/news/3-major-charity-groups-ask-donors-to-stop-focusing-on-overhead-costs/ - title: The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle publisher: Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard, Stanford Social Innovation Review year: 2009 url: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_nonprofit_starvation_cycle - title: Charity Impact Media publisher: Charity Impact Media year: 2026 url: https://theguysaccount.github.io/charity-impact-media/ note: Accessed October 2026. - title: WHOFUNDS open grant graph publisher: WHOFUNDS year: 2026 url: https://theguysaccount.github.io/whofunds-open-grant-graph/ note: Accessed October 2026. - title: Our Mistakes publisher: GiveWell year: 2026 url: https://www.givewell.org/about/our-mistakes note: A running list, accessed October 2026. - title: 2017 Failure Report publisher: Engineers Without Borders Canada year: 2018 url: https://www.ewb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EWB_FAILURE-REPORT_EN_03-08-2018-pages.pdf - title: Realizing the Promise of High-Quality Feedback publisher: Juan Clavijo and Melinda Tuan, Feedback Labs year: 2021 url: https://feedbacklabs.org/news-and-insights/realizing-the-promise-of-high-quality-feedback/ - title: Introduction to randomized evaluations publisher: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) year: 2023 url: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/resource/introduction-randomized-evaluations --- ## How it works Pick an organization, or start a new one, and work through the questions in any order. Each question says why it matters and, where a public record can answer it, how to check. Mark each one **yes**, **no**, **unknown** or **not applicable**, and add a note if you like. The checklist keeps a separate copy for every organization you check, saved only in this browser. The summary counts answers by status. Anything marked unknown is listed as a question to ask the organization, and the whole checklist downloads as a Markdown report you can share, edit or keep. If you came from the [Charity Lookup](/tools/charity-lookup/), the organization’s name is already filled in. Links to ProPublica and WHOFUNDS then open with that name searched, which sends it to those sites when you click. ## Six groups of questions **Legitimacy** asks whether the organization is what it says it is: recognized by the IRS, still filing, registered where your state requires it, and governed by people who can check it. **Money** asks what the spending buys and who else pays, and deliberately doesn’t ask for an overhead ratio, because a low one tells you little about results. That is [the Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/). **Results** asks for outcomes, not just outputs, which is [the Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/). **Learning** asks whether the organization publishes what didn’t work and changes because of it, the cure for [the Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/). **The system lens** asks what no tax form shows: where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) the work acts, what would happen without it, whether it coordinates with others and whether the people it serves have a say. That last one is [the Missing Voice](/diagnosis/missing-voice/). **Red flags** are warning signs the Federal Trade Commission describes. In that group, yes means you saw the sign. ## What it isn’t It isn’t a score, and it never adds answers into a grade. A “no” is information, not a verdict: a young organization may not have an audit yet, and a tiny one may have no reason to publish a failure report. Unknowns are questions, never failures. The registries it points to are U.S. sources run by other organizations, and Charitology doesn’t vouch for what they show. A clean checklist doesn’t prove an organization is effective, and seeing a red flag doesn’t prove a scam. It means stop and check.