If you’ve seen USA Today’s recent Q & A article offering tips on giving – and giving smarter – you know it contains some useful common sense tips for the donating public.

As a first step, we know to beware of email solicitations from dubious sources, the old fake change bucket at the shopping center schemes and to resist giving over the phone without first examining some materials from the charity that’s seeking a donation.

The article gets some things right – like giving with your head and not your heart and making sure to do your due diligence regarding an organization’s financial statements and structure before giving – but misses the mark on others. For instance, should our first step really be to “focus on your interests and priorities”?  This might be a tad elementary in our book.

Without question, we advocate giving to an organization/cause that you’re passionate about and have an emotional connection to.  Not only will you be more involved in your giving, but you’re likely to keep giving if you have a native interest in where your money is going. 

But let’s not forget, it’s important to realize that you can still give to “pet” causes and give to effective organizations at the same time.  Just do a little more digging, that’s all.

No matter what the cause we know some organizations are more accountable and more effective at delivering results than others.  Make sure to check their efforts and ask questions. Make sure to give to that organization that is focused not only on its performance but on measuring its efforts and relating that to its performance. 

With GuideStar estimating that there are 1.7 million nonprofits in the U.S. alone, shouldn’t you find the one that gets the most bang for your buck?  Give smart this year, identify and reward organizations who value getting the job done and prove that their efforts continue to lead to successful outcomes.