How to check a fund yourself

From outside you can check formal things: whether the legal entity exists and is not terminated, whether reports are published, where the payment button leads, and whether the payee matches the organisation's name. That is not much, but it can be proven.

What cannot be checked at all: whether your money reached that particular drone. That is visible only from inside the organisation — from primary documents, handover acts and bank statements. So our directory shows what was checked and stays silent where there is no check, instead of awarding stars for “reliability”.

The second limitation: some state registers are closed for the duration of martial law. The register of non-profit institutions and tax data are not published, so “not found in the non-profit register” currently means nothing bad.

A charitable foundation in Ukraine is a registered legal entity with an EDRPOU code. The code should be on the website: in the footer, in the public offer, or on the “About” page. No code means nothing to look up, and that is the first thing to notice.

1. Find the EDRPOU code on the organisation's siteUsually in the page footer or in the public offer agreement next to the payment button.
2. Check the code in the Ministry of Justice free searchThe service at usr.minjust.gov.ua shows the name, status (“registered” or “terminated”), the director and the registration date.
3. Compare the name with the one on the siteThe register holds the full formal name; the site shows a short one. They must still be the same organisation.
4. Look at the registration dateA foundation created a week ago for one particular appeal is not a reason to refuse, but it is a reason to look harder at everything else.

A volunteer initiative without a legal entity is also a normal thing: many such groups have worked for years. But then trust rests on people rather than on a register, and can only be judged by reputation — public reports, known names, a track record.

A report is not a nice page with photographs but an answer to three questions: how much was raised, how much was spent, and on what exactly. Look for regularity (monthly, quarterly, annual), whether the sums add up between periods, and whether specific purchases are named rather than “help for the military”.

A strong signal is an independent auditor's report: large foundations publish an annual audit opinion. A weaker but still useful signal is regular public reporting on social media with handover documents.

In the directory, the “report” cell means only that the site has a reporting section. Reading the report and drawing a conclusion is your part of the work.

The most common fraud is not an invented foundation but substituted payment details of a real one: a copied site on a lookalike domain, someone else's appeal with a swapped jar, a repost with “updated details”. So look at the route, not at the name.

1. Start from the official site, not from a repostTake the details from the organisation's own page. In this directory the button leads exactly there — to its own domain.
2. Check the address of the payment pageThe padlock and https:// are mandatory. The payment form's domain is either the foundation's own or a known provider (LiqPay, WayForPay, Fondy, Portmone, PayPal, Stripe).
3. Verify the payeeThe payment form and your banking app must show the organisation, not a private person's name.
4. A personal jar is not a foundationA Monobank jar can be a legitimate tool for a volunteer, but legally it is a transfer to a private individual: no reporting, no refund. For large sums that is a different level of risk.

• Urgency instead of explanation“Two hours left”, “urgent”, “send now”. Time pressure exists to stop you checking.
• Details only in comments or private messagesA real appeal has a page you can reach from the site's home page.
• An appeal “for everything at once”Not “for needs”, but what exactly, for whom, and at what cost.
• A new page with someone else's photographsA reverse image search often finds the original appeal run by a different organisation.
• A domain that merely looks familiarHyphens, extra letters, a different zone: check the address character by character.

Report it to the Cyber Police — a statement can be filed online at ticket.cyberpolice.gov.ua. In parallel, contact your bank: if the payment went through by card there is a chargeback procedure, and the sooner you ask, the better the chances.

If a real foundation's page has been faked, warn the foundation itself. They have a channel for such reports and will get the copy taken down faster than you can.

• usr.minjust.gov.ua — free search in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities
• data.gov.ua — weekly register export, CC BY; the codes in this directory are checked against it
• Law on Charitable Activity and Charitable Organisations
• ticket.cyberpolice.gov.ua — filing a report with the Cyber Police