Charity Navigator

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charity Navigator is an independent, non-profit organization that evaluates American charities. Their stated goal is "to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the financial health of America's largest charities."

1 About
2 Evaluation methodology
3 References
4 External links
5 Further reading

[edit] About

Charity Navigator was launched on April 15, 2002 with the mission of helping "donors make informed giving decisions and enabling well-run charities to demonstrate their commitment to proper stewardship" of donor dollars. Initially, Charity Navigator provided financial ratings for 1,100 charities. Charity Navigator currently evaluates over 5,000 charities in U.S.A., in addition to hundreds of organizations with international operations.

The site also features opinion pieces by Charity Navigator experts, donation tips, and top-10 and bottom-10 lists which rank efficient and inefficient organizations in a number of categories. Annually, Charity Navigator conducts a national study to determine and analyze any statistical differences that may exist in the financial practices of charities located in different metropolitan markets across America.

The service is free, and the site is navigable by charity name, location or type of activity. Charity Navigator is a 501(c)(3) organization which accepts no advertising or donations from the organizations it evaluates, ensuring unbiased evaluations.

[edit] Evaluation methodology

Using publicly available tax returns (IRS Form 990) filed with the Internal Revenue Service, the Charity Navigator rating system bases its evaluations in two broad areas — organizational efficiency and organizational capacity. Based on how the charity rates in each of the two areas, it is assigned an overall rating, ranging from zero to four stars. To help donors avoid becoming victims of mailing-list appeals, each assessment of a charity's finances is accompanied by a review of its commitment to keeping donors' personal information confidential.