Although the deluge of telephone calls associated with the 2016 presidential election has (for the most part, and thank goodness) gone away, calls seeking charitable contributions know no season and continue unabated.

Charitable contributions, whether solicited by telephone or otherwise, are big business. An article in The Denver Post in December said there are now 13,663 charitable organizations registered with the Colorado secretary of state as actual or potential contribution seekers in this state. The secretary of state’s annual report of registered charitable organizations for 2015 showed total contributions of $79.6 billion. This is a nationwide statistic but, even back in 2008, a report issued by the Colorado Nonprofit Association said Coloradoans that year made charitable contributions totaling $3.8 billion.

Charitable organizations making telephone solicitations are exempt from federal and state no-call lists. Therefore, telling a solicitor to buzz off because you’ve listed your phone number on a no-call registry won’t do you any good (although, if you pitch enough of a fit, most charitable organizations will put you on their own no-call list. Note on list: “Boy, you don’t want to call THAT lady.”)

Colorado residents are not, however, without rights and protections when it comes to charitable solicitations by telephone. That’s because, since 1988, Colorado has had a hugely detailed statute called the Colorado Charitable Solicitations Act. This act requires all charities soliciting (or even thinking about soliciting) contributions from Colorado residents to register with the Colorado secretary of state and to file annual reports showing, among other things, the organization’s purpose; its assets and liabilities; its revenue and expenses; and the contributions it received during the reporting period.

The act also puts “professional fundraising consultants” and “paid solicitors” on a short leash, to include an initial registration and annual reporting, and prohibiting felons from working in these professions.

Under the act, fundraisers who are paid must disclose this fact when they call. They must also give you their full name, the name of the telemarketing company that employs them and the name and telephone number of the organization on whose behalf they are soliciting. Furthermore, if you ask – but only if you ask – they must tell you what percentage of your contribution will make it into the hands of the organization for which the contribution is sought and not be consumed by the fee paid to the solicitor.

Again if you ask, but only if you ask, the fundraiser must provide his or her secretary of state registration number and the registration number of the subject charitable organization. In circumstances where a requested contribution will not be wholly tax-deductible, the recipient of the call must be so advised.

Before a paid solicitor attempts to collect a contribution, the contributor must be given a written disclosure containing much the same information required in the telephone solicitation, plus a capital letters/10-point type/bolded statement that the solicitor is a paid solicitor and that registration with the secretary of state is not an endorsement of any kind.

Volunteer fundraisers have largely been left alone by the act. However, they too are required to tell you if a requested contribution won’t be tax-deductible.

The act contains a three-day right of rescission, allowing contributors a chance to rethink any promise made to provide a contribution. And there are serious criminal sanctions for violations of the act.

A great deal of information about the Colorado Charitable Solicitations Act and charitable solicitation activity in Colorado is available at the secretary of state’s website, sos.state.co.us, including the registration statements of all charities soliciting in this state.

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Jim Flynn is a private attorney with Flynn & Wright LLC in Colorado Springs. He is the author of three law-related novels. Contact him at moneylaw@jtflynn.com.