What should you ask a charity before you fund it?

This is the conversation after the ten-minute check. It works by phone, by email, or across a table, and it takes about half an hour.

These six are openers. They begin a partnership between you and an organization you are working with to do good in the world. Approach it as a peer. There is a power dynamic in any conversation where one side holds the money, and doing what you can to shrink it is part of the job. The organization is the expert on its work. You are the expert on what you want to fund. The questions are how the two meet.

1. What are you trying to change?

Not what you do. What is different in the world if it works. A good answer is specific and names the people. A weak one is a mission statement.

2. How do you know it is working?

The question that separates organizations. A good answer describes something they measure, when they measure it, and what it showed. A weak answer is a story about one person. Stories are fine as illustration. They are not the answer.

3. What will this money do this year?

A gift should land somewhere. A good answer says where, and is honest if the answer is "general operations," which is a perfectly good answer when it is said plainly. A weak answer promises a specific outcome for a specific dollar figure, which almost nobody can deliver.

4. Who else funds you, and for how long?

A charity with one funder is fragile. One with government contracts has a different fragility. Neither is disqualifying. What you want to hear is that they know their own exposure.

5. What did not work last year?

The most useful question on the list, and the one people forget to ask. Every organization has an answer. The ones that give it easily are the ones learning from it. A blank look or a pivot to a success story tells you something too.

6. What would you do with more?

Whether there is a plan past the current budget. A good answer is concrete and a little eager. A weak answer is "more of the same" with no sense of what the constraint is.

Then check the organization behind the answers: registration, filings, governance, finances. That part is a separate job, and it is the part that can be done for you.

Questions people also ask

Should I ask about overhead?

Not first, and probably not at all. See how much a charity should spend on overhead.

What if the charity cannot answer question two?

Ask how they would know if it stopped working. An organization that has never thought about it will struggle with both. One that has thought about it and lacks the resources to measure will say so, and that is an honest answer worth funding.

Is it rude to ask what did not work?

No. Serious organizations expect it and are usually relieved. Ask it kindly and mean it.

How long should this take?

Thirty minutes by phone. Longer if the answers are good, because then you will have follow-ups.