Around this time of year, people often think of donating to charities. Choosing worthy ones, however, can be difficult. GuideStar, from Philanthropic Research, Inc., can help you and your clients make more educated decisions. This Web site provides information about the operations and finances of more than 620,000 nonprofit organizations in the United States.

With GuideStar Basic, you can conduct a simple search to verify a nonprofit's legitimacy, learn whether a contribution will be tax deductible, view a nonprofit's recent Forms 990, or find out more about its mission, programs, and finances. This service is available at no cost, but a log-in is required.

For the more serious researcher, GuideStar also has additional packages for a fee: GuideStar Select and GuideStar Premium. These include greater search capability, advanced sort options, and extra documentation. For more information, see the features chart on the GuideStar web site.

But, wait - there's more... GuideStar also offers a handful of other products for research and outreach, as well as, what it calls some custom solutions.