Volunteering online is the quickest as well as convenient way to give charity. But online charitable donations might also come with drawbacks that donors really need to know about. Of course, there are certain things that you ought to know before giving your donations online. To help you donate online to charities both effectively and safely, here is everything you need to know before taking the next step.
Obtain Contact Information
You need to ensure that you have the option to contact the charity online through a working email address and offline through a phone number and a mailing address too. Sometimes, it might also be necessary to contact the charity offline if the charity’s website is not functioning properly. You should as well insist upon seeing a physical address as this helps you to get rid of scammers who may set up a flashy website, raise a lot of money and disappear into anonymity of cyberspace.
You should also look for date of information. Some charities don’t change the information on their websites for months or sometimes even years. It’s for this that you need to find out when the information on the web page was last updated. Without verification of the date of the web page, you can possibly run the risk of supporting an organization that has changed its purpose or programs and is no longer in existence.
Give Safely
Before sharing any credit card information when it comes to charitable donations, you need to make sure the site uses encryption technology to protect you. Check the address bar on the page that requires sensitive information to be posted. The URL should also begin with https. The S stands for secure and it is a clear indicator that sensitive information will be encrypted as well as transmitted securely. If a charity keeps donors’ personal information on an online network, you need to find out if it utilizes firewalls or other technology to protect it from hackers.
You should also ensure the technology that a charity uses to protect your information from theft is up-to-date as hackers may possibly know how to defeat older security software. Moreover, you might need to keep paper records too. Print a copy of your final confirmation screen or an email confirmation of your donation. If you haven’t received a confirmation notice, you should notify the charity immediately to see if it received your contribution.
