David Y. Ige

HONOLULU – Attorney General Clare E. Connors joins state charities regulators nationwide, the National Association of State Charities Officials and the Federal Trade Commission to announce International Charity Fraud Awareness Week (ICFAW), which runs from October 18 to 22, 2021.  ICFAW is a coordinated international campaign to help charities and consumers fight fraud and promote wise giving.

“Our Department is pleased to partner once again with this international effort,” said Attorney General Connors. “Our goal is to raise awareness so people can make informed and thoughtful choices about the charities they support with donations.  Ensuring these donations go directly to reputable and legitimate charities is especially important as our community works together to recover from the hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

This year’s Charity Fraud Awareness Week brings together the charities sector and agencies across the globe that regulate them in a collaborative media campaign to raise awareness of issues surrounding charity fraud and to promote their common goal of fraud prevention.  As most sectors of society, charities are susceptible to fraud.  Working together, we can strengthen the organizations on which so many depend.

Charity Fraud Awareness Week encourages the participation of all organizations, regardless of size, to discuss fraud in the sector and to share with each other best practices to address and prevent it.  A feature of this year’s campaign is a brand-new web page: www.preventcharityfraud.com that includes resources such as templates, info sheets, case studies, best practices, and links to webinars.

Please join our efforts at #StopCharityFraud and follow the Hawaii Attorney General on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AtghIgov this week for daily tips on preventing and avoiding charity fraud.

Organizations and individuals are also urged to access Charity Fraud Awareness Week’s website (www.preventcharityfraud.com) to take advantage of its resources and identify ways they can participate and contribute to the week’s activities.  Also Charities can sign a new fraud pledge to demonstrate their commitment to tackling fraud and signatories will receive a digital certificate for use on their websites and/or intranets and can upload their logo to the website.

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