If you are deciding whether to give to a local children's charity, the percentage that goes to programs is the easy number to check. It is not the best test.

In 2013, BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, and GuideStar, three groups that evaluate or report on charities, published a joint open letter to donors about what they called the overhead myth. They asked donors to look past overhead ratios and focus on transparency, governance, leadership, and results.

That is a better place to start. The five questions below put it into practice, and each one comes with what the answer looks like at a small local foundation.

Why the overhead percentage falls short

The letter's point was that overhead pays for real work. The three groups wrote that overhead costs include important investments charities make to improve their work.

A low percentage can mean a lean, well-run group. It can also mean a group that is not investing enough in itself to do its work well. The number on its own cannot tell you which.

Five questions to ask before you give

1. Can you see where specific dollars went, by name and amount?

A pie chart is not the list. Ask for the list: this recipient, this amount, this year. A charity that funds hospitals or programs should be able to tell you who received what.

Friends of Jack publishes its grant history by recipient, amount, and year, from 2019 through 2026.

2. Are the filings easy to find?

Under IRS rules, an exempt organization must make its annual information return, the Form 990, available for public inspection. What you can judge is how easy a charity makes it.

A group that links its own 990s, annual reports, and financial statements from its website has decided you should see them. Friends of Jack publishes its annual reports, financial statements, and IRS filings, including Form 990.

3. Does the money stay where they say it does?

If a charity says it serves your region, its grant list should read like a map of it.

Friends of Jack serves SouthCoast Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Recipients on its published list include St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford, Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence, Boston Children's Hospital's satellite office in North Dartmouth, and the Rhode Island Hospital Burn Center. If a local charity's list turns out to be mostly somewhere else, ask about it.

4. Will they tell you what they do not do?

Honest limits are a good sign. A children's health charity that says plainly which roles and programs it funds, instead of implying it solves childhood illness, is being straight with you.

Friends of Jack, for example, funds Child Life Specialist roles. That is a specific thing, and you can check it against the grant list.

5. Is anyone accountable when the answer is unflattering?

Ask what happened with a program that did not work, and why it stopped. A group that can answer that question is measuring its work.

What to do with the answers

You can ask all five without an accountant. Ask for specifics, and notice who answers with sentiment instead. A local organization doing careful work should be glad to answer.

Ask Friends of Jack the same questions. We would rather you check than take our word for it.

See the full grant history and filings on our transparency page.