How to Get Involved With Dallas Nonprofits

Dallas has one of the deepest nonprofit sectors in the country, from a food bank distributing 136 million meals a year to shelters, community foundations, and park conservancies. Here is how residents can give, volunteer, and vet organizations well.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

Dallas has an unusually active nonprofit and philanthropic sector, spanning education, hunger, housing, health, and the arts. For residents who want to help, with time, money, or expertise, the challenge is less about finding organizations than about choosing well and contributing in a way that actually helps.

The organizations doing the work

A few anchors give a sense of the scale:

• North Texas Food Bank distributes well over 130 million meals a year through a network of roughly 500 partner pantries across a dozen counties, from its campus in Plano.
• United Way of Metropolitan Dallas focuses on education, income, and health, including its Southern Dallas Thrives initiative.
• The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center, open since 2008 in downtown's Farmers Market district, serves hundreds of guests a day with shelter, healthcare, and meals.
• Communities Foundation of Texas and The Dallas Foundation, the region's major community foundations, have each moved more than a billion dollars in cumulative grants. Communities Foundation runs North Texas Giving Day, which raises tens of millions in a single day for thousands of nonprofits.
• Big Thought reaches more than 100,000 young people a year through creative learning, and Genesis Women's Shelter and Support serves survivors of domestic violence.
• Park and garden groups like the Dallas Arboretum rely on thousands of volunteers contributing roughly 100,000 hours a year.

Ways to contribute

Money is the most direct form of support, but it is not the only one:

• Skilled volunteering. Offering professional expertise in law, accounting, marketing, or technology is often more valuable to a small nonprofit than another hour of general help.
• Board service. Many organizations recruit residents for governing boards, which shape strategy and finances.
• Hands-on volunteering. North Texas's main matching platform, VOLY.org (run by VolunteerNow), lists thousands of roles and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of volunteers a year. VolunteerMatch is another good source.
• In-kind gifts and event support, which keep programs and fundraisers running.

The best gift is the one an organization actually needs. Ask before you assume.

How to vet an organization

Before you give, spend a few minutes on diligence:

• Confirm the group's tax-exempt status through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search.
• Read its most recent annual report and Form 990.
• Check independent ratings on Charity Navigator and profiles on Candid/GuideStar.
• Look at how it measures outcomes, not just activities, and favor organizations that make their finances easy to find.

Getting started

You do not need to solve everything. Pick one cause you care about, choose a well-run organization, and commit to a modest, sustainable level of involvement. Consistent support from many residents, more than the occasional large gift, is what keeps the city's civic infrastructure strong.