How To Properly Vet Charities To Support With Michael Thatcher
Care More Be Better: A Podcast For Sustainable Social Impact and Regeneration
Corinna Bellizzi
5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 July 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Numerous charities pop up left and right whenever a crisis arises. Although these not-for-profit organizations raise money for good causes, some only gather financial donations to feed their selfish interests. As a donor, how can you separate legitimate charities from fake ones? Michael Thatcher makes charity vetting way easier through Charity Navigator. Joining Corinna Bellizzi, he shares how their team evaluates and rates different charities across the country, helping people ensure that they are putting their hard-earned money on reputable not-for-profit organizations aligning with their values. Michael also discusses the power of charity collaboration in today’s economic market, with inflation and rising interest rates directly impacting how much donors are giving to charities.
About Michael Thatcher
Michael leads Charity Navigator in its efforts to make impactful philanthropy easier for all by increasing the breadth and depth of evaluation methodologies to facilitate ratings coverage of substantially larger numbers of charities and expand how the information engages new and existing audiences. Prior to joining Charity Navigator Michael spent more than fifteen years with Microsoft, the last ten of which, as their Public-Sector Chief Technology Officer responsible for technology policy initiatives and engagements with governments and academic leaders in Asia, the Middle-East and Africa. Michael's eclectic background includes years at sea conducting oceanographic research with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, composing music and dancing internationally as the co-founder and co-director of Dance Music Light. He has held various board positions within the nonprofit and tech sector, holds several patents in enterprise systems management and has a degree in Music from Columbia University in New York. His guiding mantra: Follow your heart - Use your head - Make a difference.
Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/charity-navigator/
Guest Website: https://charitynavigator.org
Guest Social: https://www.instagram.com/charitynav/, https://www.facebook.com/charitynavigator, https://www.youtube.com/charitynavigator, https://twitter.com/CharityNav
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | when I was working at Microsoft, yes, I did enterprise systems management on the Windows team, |
| 0:04.7 | but that was more about, again, data collection and data management. |
| 0:08.8 | And then the public sector work I did, which really was the most rewarding part of my time in the organization, |
| 0:15.0 | was helping governments improve services to citizens, improve education, improve healthcare, extend reach, and all of this |
| 0:24.5 | through using technology as a lever for change. And so coming to Charity Navigator, I was attracted |
| 0:29.8 | to the opportunity of how can you tell if a charity is making a difference? What is their impact |
| 0:34.5 | in the world? And so there's a consistency through data collection |
| 0:38.5 | and data processing in my career. |
| 0:40.7 | It's a little bit hard to see, but it's there. |
| 0:43.5 | And it's been, I care less about the technology |
| 0:46.5 | than more what it's letting us do or letting us understand. |
| 0:50.3 | Welcome to Care More Be Better, |
| 0:53.3 | a podcast for people like you who care about the social impact of conscious companies and everyday heroes. |
| 1:00.1 | Hear inspiring stories from those who put people in planet before profit and personal gain. |
| 1:05.7 | You'll learn how you can make a difference, vote with your dollars, and get involved today. |
| 1:10.5 | Here's your host, Karina Belizzi. |
| 1:15.2 | Hello, fellow do-goers and friends. I'm your host, Karina Belizzi. Have you ever wondered when you're |
| 1:21.2 | selecting a charity that you want to support or even just thinking about it, whether you're actually |
| 1:26.1 | choosing one that's well managed and that |
| 1:29.1 | really does the work that you intend to support. On this show, every time I bring on a not-for-profit, |
| 1:36.0 | I do quite a bit of research of legwork. I look at reviews, the good and the bad. I do Google |
| 1:43.0 | searches like any of us really do, and I connect with |
... |
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