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WeSpire serves as an end-to-end giving solution and that includes the vetting aspect of your donation process. Below you'll find our matrix for how you should think about vetting and evaluating your non-profit partners. Explore this page to learn our philosophy and how we can help.
First, let's get on the same page on terminology. "Vetting" is the first level of scrutiny we apply to charities, and it establishes the legal and regulatory ability to pay a charity money, and the charity's ability to receive those funds. We can apply additional, more restrictive, scrutiny as well, so read on below for details.
The level to which you evaluate a charity should be dependent on why you and your employees are supporting that cause and to what level.
Vetting is the first step of diligence and every charity the program supports must be vetted. WeSpire performs this process automatically, ensuring charities are legally qualified to receive donations. Our list of vetted charities includes every IRS-registered US 501c3 organization and a growing list of thousands of international charities.
If you are considering establishing a long-term, substantial partnership with a charity, additional levels of evaluation are available.
Browse the complete List of Vetted Charities to see all the organizations available. Where you desire to support organizations not already vetted, your CSM will work with our vetting procedure to provide a timeline and cost estimate.
Determine if your recipient is a valid 501c3 or international equivalent. This step ensures that the Donor Advised Fund can make a donation to that charity.
U.S. Charities: WeSpire will check against all 1.4M U.S. charities in the IRS database to ensure the organizations you have selected are legal entities.
In the case that a U.S. charity is not in the database (can often be a church or private school as IRS registration is not required) the process can take 3-10 days depending on how responsive the charity in question is. For US-based organizations, there is no cost for this.
To search existing vetted charities, visit the List of Vetted Charities.
Our database provides real-time updates from partners on organization status as a vetted charity. Organizations that fail the vetting process are removed from our database. For example, if an organization's tax status is revoked by the IRS, the charity is removed from our database as an approved charity.
Non-U.S. Charities: With our network of international partners, thousands of international charities have already been vetted to be the international equivalency of a 501c(3).
For international organizations not yet in our database, we need to both vet to make sure they are a US charity equivalency, and determine and if they are set up to receive funds from the US. This is a complicated process that often requires partnerships with giving vendors overseas. It will vary based on the charity and country and can take 6 weeks - 3 months and can cost up to $1,700. There are often minimum dollar amounts required and some organizations won't collaborate for a donation under $5,000. Please connect with your CSM with questions.
If time is of the essence, your Customer Success Manager will work with you to ensure there are plenty of giving options for each country you have operations in covering a wide variety of charitable aims.
Such reliance is consistent with the guidance provided in IRS Notice 2006-109 (51 I.R.B.1121) as revised by Revenue Procedure 2009-32.
<aside> 💡 WeSpire can also use the IRS taxonomy to instantly feature categories of non-profits in your giving activities (i.e. health and human services, education, civic and community, environment, arts and culture, etc.).
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The steps below are increasingly thorough checks that you can optionally require for your giving.
The relationship between the charity and your company is free of any conflicts of interest.
While there are no central databases that can do automated screening for these types of conflicts, WeSpire can run LexisNexis searches to see if related parties exist in public charity documents and your organization. We can access data related to board members and can share this with our clients to help them make critical decisions about funding. You may request this level of evaluation on a case-by-case basis or build it into your Grants Management approval process.
The non-profit is actively moving the needle on a social issue and creating positive social change. Oftentimes recommended charities align with organizations' social impact priorities.
WeSpire will research public reports of charity effectiveness, impact, and reputation to inform a recommendation of support. Data source completeness varies by charity, cause, and country. Often, if we cannot find sufficient information on a specific charity to provide a recommendation, we can find an organization with similar impact to recommend instead.
Transformative philanthropic programs often have long-term, established relationships with non-profit partners with whom their business or mission is aligned.
Strategic partners are ones with whom there is a strong potential to build long-lasting relationships that combine both impactful volunteering opportunities and philanthropic giving.
WeSpire assists organizations that have well-established goals for their social impact program and helps identify key partners and craft proposals to facilitate lasting symbiotic relationships.
We will help you identify where your existing giving is going and what causes your employees are passionate about to inform the future direction of your strategic partnerships.
<aside> 💡 Want to elevate your philanthropy to strategic levels? WeSpire offers bespoke consulting services to help you identify social impact goals, outline philanthropic priorities, and search for key influential partners.
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Depending on which type of philanthropic program you're running, you might require a different level of evaluation. Here are some examples:
Example: A company wants to distribute $1m across 50 global charities that address 1 issue. They request all organizations be vetted.
Example: A company wants to encourage employees to use their $500 annual matching giving funds so they are maximizing the number of charities so every employee can find a local organization that appeals to them. They have enabled employees to give and match to all vetted charities in the database.
Example: A company has a clear social impact program and is looking for partners to help meet its ambitious goals. They are working with WeSpire to evaluate charities through level Level 4.