Giving to foreign charities can be tricky. How do you know the organization is legitimate? How do you know the money is going where they say it is? How do you ensure your charitable donations will be recognized? The National Christian Foundation (NCF) has a solution for this – our friends at TrustBridge Global.
TrustBridge has been helping givers send money worldwide since 2016. Now, their newly launched GivingSpace makes international giving even more accessible.
Jim Rich, vice president at TrustBridge, helped create the new GivingSpace platform. He says the idea is for anyone from anywhere to be able to give to any charity in the world with just a click of a button, with full confidence that the organization has been thoroughly vetted.
Members of the TrustBridge Global Network collectively impact more than 70,000 charities in 85 countries. International givers can be confident that each individual charity in the TrustBridge database is not only registered and in compliance with the local country’s laws, but also meets TrustBridge’s higher international standards.
With a network of global partners, this process works, whether you are a giver in Australia wanting to donate to a Canadian charity, a U.S. giver giving to Ukraine, or a South African giver wanting to give in the U.S.
“We don’t want borders or nationalities or languages to impede the flow of giving around the world,” Rich says.
It works like this: A giver recommends an organization they have heard about – like an orphanage or health clinic they visited on a recent mission trip or the church in a rural Ugandan village – and TrustBridge does the research to ensure the charity is valid.
They confirm that the organization receiving funds meets the charity registration laws of its country. But they don’t stop there. The charity must also meet a higher, international standard comprised of the most stringent laws across the globe. TrustBridge then looks into the financials, organizing and governing documents, and leadership structure and backgrounds to make sure the organization is well-run and is equivalent to a U.S.-based charitable organization.
They do the work so donors can be confident they’re giving to a well-managed, legal entity. Once the charity is approved, TrustBridge facilitates the donation for the giver.
In the past, this incredibly rich, well-researched charities database was largely hidden from the public eye. That small orphanage or health clinic a giver visited? Though it passed the rigorous vetting process and is now set up to receive donations through TrustBridge, no one else was made aware of it. “And why shouldn’t everyone in the world be able to find it and give to it?” Rich explains.
“Before GivingSpace was launched, there was no way to know if that orphanage was on the TrustBridge platform or not,” he says. Now, with the new searchable platform, givers from anywhere in the world can find and support small, local charities doing work for the causes they care about.
GivingSpace not only opens up TrustBridge’s vast database to givers around the world. It also allows givers to discover, donate to, and be a part of specific projects for these charities. A giver can support a rural county in Mongolia, send boxes of food to children in Ukraine, or spreading the gospel by sponsoring sports chaplains in Asia.
“If you’re a U.S. donor giving to a U.S. charity, great. You don’t need GivingSpace,” Rich says. “You can do that directly with your Giving Fund at NCF. But if you are passionate about Zimbabwe or Cambodia, we can help. And now with GivingSpace people across the world can join you in giving.”
In today’s complex world of charitable giving, TrustBridge’s GivingSpace is one way to confidently support charities and projects around the globe that align with your values, whether you’re a giver in Australia, the U.S., South Africa, or beyond.
If you’d like to support a charity or specific project you see in GivingSpace with your Giving Fund, recommend a grant to TrustBridge, and include the charity and project names in the notes.
