When giving to any charity organization, a question that is always at the back of my mind is: just how much of this donation is actually going to the cause? Today, rather than presenting a charitable gift opportunity, we wanted to share a tool for answering this question and finding great charities that efficiently do what they claim they do. Enter: Charity Navigator!

What is it?

The mission statement of Charity Navigator, according to their website, is as follows:

“Charity Navigator works to guide intelligent giving. By guiding intelligent giving, we aim to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which givers and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation’s and the world’s most persistent challenges.”

Simply, this means that Charity Navigator allows givers to know how effectively the funds they give are used by different charitable organizations in  hopes of compelling charities to more effectively meet their objectives.

How does it work?

Charity Navigator accomplishes its goal by investigating each charity and evaluating the organization on the qualities of financial health, accountability, and transparency. Each company can receive a maximum of 4 stars and a maximum rating of 70 based on these qualities. The ratings can be viewed on the company’s Charity Navigator page along with statistics that justify the rating.

According to Charity Navigator,

“Our ratings show givers how efficiently we believe a charity will use their support today, how well it has sustained its programs and services over time and their level of commitment to good governance, best practices and openness with information.”

I should also mention that Charity Navigator does not accept funding from any of the charities it rates to keep its evaluations unbiased.

Moving Forward

While it should not be the only measure taken into consideration before funding a charity, Charity Navigator is definitely an important and useful tool to employ when researching charitable giving opportunities. It is certainly one we use here at Charity Gifts and we encourage you to check it out next time you are planning on making a charitable donation.