Joanne Reisser - Likes

One of my favorite tools for charity evaluation. Very thorough. 0-4 star ratings, and they explain clearly how those are determined. - Ken Kennedy from Bookmarklet

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Who sets their metrics? And why do they "call out" charities they deem as "bad?" Some charities may not have the resources needed. Perhaps someone should go in and help them out. I just feel weird calling a charity bad and then publicizing it. Sure, donors want to make sure that their money is going to a well-run organization, but what does this scale do for those non-profits? They may be, in fact, serving a segment of the population very well... and perhaps just have lousy bookkeeping practices. - Stephen

The metrics are established at the site, Stephen. They don't focus on the poorly rated charities for the most part, but wouldn't you want to know that you're thinking about sending money to a charity that spends the majority of it's money on fund raising and administrative costs rather than...charity? I know I would. - Ken Kennedy

Here's an example where they do "name names", though: "The leaders of these 10 organizations are taking high salaries at the expense of spending dollars on the charity's programs. Despite receiving more than $240,000 in annual pay, these CEOs run organizations that devote less than 60% of their budgets to their programs and services."... more... - Ken Kennedy

Here's the page with the ratings tables and explanations: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index... - Ken Kennedy

Sure I would. I actually did fund raising for a non-profit that NEVER said thank you. Never tracked anything... it was a really sketchy operation overall, yet they had extremely high ratings. All I'm saying is Charity Navigator, while proven to a "novice" giver, does have its faults. That's more upsetting... being misled. - Stephen

I hear what you're saying, Stephen...but note I didn't suggest doing a select against tblCharity ordered by rating desc, and pulling off the top row. *grin* I'd never use CN for primary determination, but knowing how an organization that you're about to give money to uses it's money isn't a bad idea, IMO. I base charity choices primarily on causes I'm interested in, word of mouth testimonial, results...and financial transparency and metrics. - Ken Kennedy

So, what I hear you saying is CN is bogus? Kidding. Hahaha. The org I raised funds for... ugh... I'm still not happy about it, and that was back in January. - Stephen

LOL...CN bogus? Hardly. I think they are an outstanding resource. *grin* - Ken Kennedy

Charity Navigator, as it stands today, is a great tool for deciding who NOT to give to but completely useless for deciding who TO give to. The reason is that their ratings and evaluation are completely based on a non-profit's financials and take zero account of the actual impact the non-profit is delivering. So while it's useful for identifying fradulent charities, it's useless for... more... - Gordon

Joanne Reisser › Likes