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Erin

Erin, another happy iPump client!

  

Why isn't iPump listed in some national charity registries?

We do not appear on some charity registrations yet because many registries will not list charities that take in less than $500,000 (or even in some cases $1 to $5 million) in CASH donations from the public each year.  Most of our donations come from in-kind goods which the IRS recognizes as donations, but charity registration services do not see as "countable" donation income.

Some, organizations (like Guidestar.org) offer a very valuable service but charge charities $300 or more annually to register with them. Still others have registration deadlines or do not even offer open memberships but randomly select char ties to add to their data bases.

Charity Registrations Exclude The Majority of Charities

Most registries use a selection process that favors only the largest charities.  This may be because more people are giving larger amounts to bigger organizations so it is important that someone "watch dog" these multi-million-dollar charities -- but it does hurt us "little" guys.  Smaller nonprofits do not get rated so fewer people know about us or worse -- when they cannot find iPump listed decide we are not a legitimate organization.

Many small nonprofits may not even be required to file a Form 990 with the IRS so there is no reporting data for registries to look at.  iPump has filed short 990s each year because we were so small our first year and these forms are ignored by charity registrars.  However, in our third fiscal tax year, we have grown so much, that we will now need to file the longer Form 990.  Still, most of our revenue is not cash, but donated goods, so we will likely be overlooked by registrars in 2009.

There are many reasons why iPump does not make it into "big" charity registries but not because we have done anything wrong.

For example, one major registry we requested to be listed with replied:

 

    "Our basic criterion to consider a charity for a rating is:  

     1. The charity must take in at least $1 million in public support annually (excluding In-Kind contributions & government contributions).

    2.  The charity must have a budget of at least $500,000 per year (excluding In-Kind expenses).

    3.  The charity must have been in existence for at least 3 years, and be of national interest to donors (we do not rate charities of local or regional interest, with the exception of groups that have a large, national office, and/or a consolidated audit including the financials of all of the local/regional affiliates).

Once a charity meets these basic criterion we decide which groups to add to the Guide based on member requests and/or the donor interest; i.e., if we receive many requests for a particular charity over time we consider them for a rating. We add between 15-20 organizations to our Guide each year.  With over 1.8 million charities in the U.S., however, we do not have the resources to rate all groups, even those that meet the basic criterion to be considered. "

  

 

Someday iPump will be large enough to meet all the criteria of large charity database providers,, but for now, we simply hope that we meet yours!

 

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