That's a start, but for me to be "happy" I'd want there to be similar level of accountability and safeguards from bottom to top. So those charities would need to be subject to the same kind of legal rules as a government agency - FOIA, equal protection clause, that kind of thing. And there'd have to be a similar culture of holding them to account. (Like, counterintuitively I'd be happier if I started seeing a lot more news reports of charities wasting funds, because that would suggest that reporters at least cared enough to investigate)
You pretty much can, if you can afford the O(1) legal costs to get it approved and set up. An "art museum" set up next door to the "donor" and open only by appointment with the "donor"? Perfectly legitimate according to the IRS.
> An "art museum" set up next door to the "donor" and open only by appointment with the "donor"? Perfectly legitimate according to the IRS.
Source? Most fundraising events have a deductible and non-deductible portion of the ticket price because the IRS does not look fondly on such practices.
You know what could be good, these charities talk about stories, not their statistics. Maybe they could humanistically keep records of their stories, like use a good system for that, maybe part digital, but with paper, so they can be read.
Like the complaints at Liga Chilena Contra la Epilepsia, they just have a Sugerencias y Reclamos book, which you can read (though they told me it is not for me to read). You can see for instance that they addressed one complaint they got a lot, which was the lack of cashiers, so in fact with their remodel five years ago they changed it completely so they now have up to 8 cashiers at a time, and short wait times. My favorite Chilean pharmacy, I'll repeat here the comment I left for that charity: "Un siete!"