How Do I Choose a Charity to Donate To in Kenya?

Search the name or EIN on the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. A registered U.S. 501(c)(3) will appear with its EIN and current standing. If a group asking for tax-deductible gifts is not there, stop and ask why.

Then find the most recent Form 990. It is a public document. You are not looking for a perfect ratio; you are looking for a filed, coherent return and no surprises in officer compensation.

Three databases make this quick. Look the organization up on Candid/GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, which posts the raw 990 filings. Those links point at our own records so you can see what a complete set looks like — and run the same three checks on anyone else you are considering.

The most useful question you can ask a Kenya-focused charity is who chooses which family is served next. If the answer is a U.S. staff member on a quarterly visit, the organization is guessing. If the answer is a named Kenyan director who lives in that community, the organization is listening.

At 100 Humanitarians International, program spending is planned with Kenyan directors in each community we work in. You can see them and their communities on the map on our homepage.

Two questions separate serious organizations from vague ones:

• What does a specific amount buy? A good answer is a thing: one garden tower, one rainwater tank, one school term. A bad answer is a percentage of a program area.
• What does the donation platform take? Many platforms take 3–8% before the nonprofit sees anything. Ours runs on Zeffy, which charges nonprofits no platform or transaction fee, so 100% of your gift reaches us. Details are at where does my donation go.

• No EIN published anywhere on the site.
• Photographs of children used without dignity or consent.
• Impact claims with no unit behind them — "changed thousands of lives".
• Orphanage tourism, or programs that let untrained visitors work with children.
• No way to see what happened after the money was spent.
• Pressure and urgency in every message.

Monthly, if you can. A field team that knows $500 arrives every month can commit to a build schedule; a team waiting on unpredictable one-time gifts plans in fits and starts. Even a small recurring gift is worth more than its size because it is reliable. You can set one up on our donate page.