美国文化一则：捐钱之前先查机构，是这里被当作常识教给普通人的一道手续，而不是对受灾者的不信任。

One American custom: checking out an organization before giving to it is taught here as an ordinary piece of common sense, not as distrust of the people in need.

这套做法的底子是「善意也要有账目」。美国的慈善募捐依赖陌生人之间的大规模给予，捐款人多半与受灾者素不相识，人情担保这条路走不通，于是社会另建了一层可查的记录：机构有正式网站与公开档案，商业改善局设有机构与慈善档案供人比对，可疑募捐可向所在平台、联邦调查局的网络犯罪投诉中心与商业改善局的诈骗追踪库举报。据 KOMO 8月16日报道，商业改善局提醒的正是这一点——平台合法不等于项目合法，还须看钱由谁经手、有多少真能到灾民手里。

The premise is that goodwill also needs a ledger. American charitable giving depends on large-scale giving between strangers, where donor and recipient usually have no connection at all, so a personal guarantee is not available; society built a checkable layer instead — organizations keep official websites and public profiles, the Better Business Bureau maintains business and charity profiles to compare against, and questionable fundraisers can be reported to the hosting platform, to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center and to BBB Scam Tracker. As KOMO reported Aug. 16, that is exactly the BBB's warning: a legitimate platform does not make a fundraiser legitimate, and one still has to ask who handles the money and how much of it reaches the victims.

中国人捐钱讲的是「托个信得过的人」，把善意交给关系去担保；美国这套是把善意交给记录去担保。前者在熟人之间又快又准，出了熟人圈就断线；后者慢、冷，可是谁都能自己查一遍。真要稳妥，两样并用最好：先问一句这钱是谁在收，再花两分钟查一眼那个名字。查的不是那位受灾的乡亲，是中间收钱的这只手。

The Chinese way of giving is to entrust the money to someone you trust, letting relationships vouch for the goodwill; the American way lets records vouch for it. The first is fast and accurate among people who know each other and breaks the moment it leaves that circle; the second is slow and cold, but anyone can run the check themselves. The safest practice uses both: ask who is collecting the money, then spend two minutes looking up that name. What you are checking is not the neighbor who lost a house — it is the hand in the middle taking the money.

来源：Source: https://komonews.com/news/local/how-to-identify-fraudulent-charity-websites-amid-donation-calls-for-spokane-wildfires