As the holidays draw near we are called upon even more often to help others that are less fortunate or to donate to charities that rely upon donations to survive.

Recently I have been inundated with phone calls, emails, and snail mail with requests for donations.

In addition we are often asked to donate our time.

Unfortunately, not every request is from a group that is legitimate. Donating to those groups that are not legitimate means that the ones that are receive less money.

If you have any doubts, I urge you to check the IRS listing of non-profit groups for verification.

www.irs.gov/app/pub-78/

There are also several sites that vet out which charities have excellent track records. Simply use your search engine to search for ranks of charities.