After deadly flooding in Texas, Colorado professor helps weed out charity scammers

Even during a tragedy, like the devastating floods in Texas, scammers are alert and ready to take your money. As a result, that desire to give needs a check-and-balance system; you need your funds to be used the way you intended them to be.

That's advice from Louanne Saraga-Walters, the director of development at MSU Denver Foundation.

"Be careful. There are people out there who really want to take advantage of you," she says. "The urgency with which scammers will approach a situation like this is meant to tap into that feeling of I want to help give. I want to make a difference. Yet that very sense of urgency is what scammers play on in order to make you give to somewhere that's not truly legitimate. And then the money does not go where you want."

There is something Saraga-Walters suggests to all her donors at the foundation. She says to "Stop, Look and Listen" before clicking that donate button.

The first step in Stop is: "Is this a real organization or is it a copycat?" she says. Start by looking at the name. If there is an extra letter in there, it's a dead giveaway. "Is it the American Red Cross or is it the Americans Red Cross with an extra S? Or an extra S on Cross? Something like that, your brain may not see right away because of that sense of urgency we want to give. But if you stop a moment, you can identify it." Recognizing the charity's URL is a good place to start. She says to Google each website and check if it ends in ".org" or something else that could be a so-called lookalike.

That leads Saraga-Walters to the second step of Look, starting with checking the charity against the IRS's tax exemption organization search tool. Donors should research if the charity has a 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. She also recommends using a charity watchdog website. This should tell you if the charity is a fiduciary organization, which only works in the donors' best interest. She says to ask yourself: Are they transparent, and do they have their documentation in place?

"I always encourage our donors to check out where [charities] will share with you who they want you to know [what] they are." She adds, "In other words, how are their funds being used? It should be stated on their website. Do they have policies? Do they have their financials posted? Can you call up and ask these questions, and are they willing to give you that information?" Saraga-Walters calls this the Listen part of her strategy.

This may seem like a lot, especially if you have loved ones impacted by a disaster. But, she says, that we're humans, and we may inherently want to help anyway.

"Everyone who feels compelled to give, please do. Know that the opportunity is going to be there. If you have the ability to, even if it's $10, it's an opportunity to help. Because your $10 added on to everybody else's is a significant impact."