Individual FAQs

Meet The Need wants your experience giving to be a great one. For example, when it comes to how needs get in the Meet The Need database, we do not allow families to post their own needs. Instead each family must be “Activated” by a local church or ministry so that someone is qualifying and assessing the legitimacy of their needs. Some organizations even conduct background checks on those families.  In our experience, most of the families are in dire situations and are barely making ends meet. For example, many of them are single mothers with children living on a single income with little or no child support. However, we still believe it's important to put a process in place that helps prevent people from taking advantage of anyone's generosity.  For church and ministry needs in the database, Meet The Need reviews and "approves" each church and ministry before they can post volunteer or resource needs.

If you donate items to a charity through Meet The Need or deliver it to a charity for them to take it to a family you selected, those donations are tax deductible. If you choose to deliver items directly to a family, those donations are not tax deductible. However, we still encourage you to consider direct donations to families because it is a wonderful experience to meet and see the family you are helping. As always, when it comes to tax-related questions, we recommend that you consult your tax advisor.

When you register, you will instantly have your own Meet The Need account or “Dashboard”. Your Dashboard will allow you to view and edit your profile information, view or update any pending donations you agreed to make, and see any completed donations you’ve made in the past (along with contact information for the recipients you selected so you can even stay in touch if you’d like). If you register under a church or ministry that you are affiliated with, you can even check out any needs that organization has or needs of others who are associated with that organization.

The Meet The Need web site is intended for donors, not recipients. The site is a NEEDS database, not a clearing house that goes both directions. It is designed for YOU to search for who you want to help… individual recipients cannot look for people who may be able to help them. In fact, Meet The Need is set up to give you complete control… everything is entirely on your terms… YOU decide who to give to, what to give, when to give and how to give!

No. Your personal information is used only to administer the Meet The Need program. We do not disseminate, distribute, sell or otherwise share your information with other organizations without your consent. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.

We certainly would not want the condition of any items to reflect poorly on you, Meet The Need or your church or ministry. Therefore, we encourage people to deliver only items that are in good, usable and working order to those in need. If the items are not in that type of condition, you may want to consider other options and alternatives rather than giving them to someone through Meet The Need.

Meet The Need works through and with a wide network of churches, ministries and alliance partners in the U.S. and around the world. If you select to give to an organization or through an organization to a local family and cannot deliver the item(s) yourself, you should contact that organization to coordinate logistics for delivery. If you would like to deliver directly to a family but are not able to transport it yourself, please contact the family to see if they can help or Contact Us and we will do our best to help make arrangements for you.

Immediately! Keep in mind that if you’d like to deliver items to families yourself you must be registered under an organization that is a member of Meet The Need so please encourage your church or ministry to start taking advantage of all of the FREE outreach tools and support that Meet The Need has to offer!

Absolutely not! Anyone can register and give through Meet The Need… anytime, anywhere!

It’s easy. Just tell them to go to MeetTheNeed.org and check out the information under Organizations… they’ll find out everything they need to know about the program and how to get started. Or feel free to use Contact Us to give us the name and phone number or e-mail of the person we should contact and we’ll reach out to them directly. And remember, the Meet The Need program including all of our software, services and support are completely FREE to registered churches and ministries!

If that statement describes you, then Meet The Need was designed in large part for you! We believe that simple acts of service alone go along way toward demonstrating God’s love to others. So we created Meet The Need to provide countless easy, tangible opportunities to do just that! The act of giving is often all that’s needed to plant a seed of faith. If you would like to go a step further, we do have suggestions to help you along the way. One example is to order from the Pocket Testament League. Click HERE to find out more…

The Meet The Need site has a charitable purpose but was designed and built to function as much like a typical, state-of-the-art business web site as possible. If you can shop online, check account balances online and check your e-mail then we’re very confident that you’ll find Meet The Need easy to use. Of course, if you do have any questions, please Contact Us and we would be happy to guide you through the process.

No, joining and using Meet The Need is completely free of charge to all individual users. Meet The Need is a 501(c)3 Public Charity that is funded in large part through the contributions of a selected group of individuals and foundations that believe in our mission and feel called to support our organization.