Charity Ratings | The Smarter Giving Guy

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The American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) is a charity watchdog and information service. At its charitywatch.org website, it publishes an ongoing list of its top-rated charities (those earning ratings of B+ or better). It also publishes a charity rating guide three times a year, where it provides its ratings for 500+ larger, national charities. The [...]

Check out greatnonprofits.org

There’s a new tool out there to help with evaluating charities: greatnonprofits.org

Here’s a bit of what it says about itself:

“Find Top-Notch Charities and Avoid the Clunkers”

– Ed Long, the Smarter Giving Guy.

Before you read more, I have an admission. There’s a downside to using my approach to being a “smart giver,” to screening charities and finding key charity information. You’ll need to work like a researcher, make lists, do calculations, and think strategically. It’s not for everybody.

For example, I don’t [...]

“How to Find Key Charity Information”

– Ed Long, the Smarter Giving Guy.

I don’t believe a serious giver should give to a charity without looking at the key performance information in its latest IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

That’s where you’ll find the charity’s program spending numbers, find its key staff and their compensation, see how efficient it is in its fundraising, [...]

Charity Screening: Childhood Leukemia Foundation

This charity screening report gives you a sample of the types of information readily available to you through an organization’s most recently filed IRS Form 990 return. By law, such returns are publicly available (excluding certain donor-identification information). We followed The Smarter Giving Guide To Finding Key Charity Information as our guide to (i) [...]

Question: Where Can I Find Charity Ratings Online?

Answer: Few organizations provide ratings of charities, and their coverage is very limited (especially when you consider that there are more than 1 million charities operating in the U.S.). The two most prominent are:

CharityNavigator.org describes itself as “America’s Largest Charity Evaluator” and provides “star” ratings (0 to 4 stars) on roughly 5,400 larger charities. [...]

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I love AIP's work

Check out greatnonprofits.org

“Find Top-Notch Charities and Avoid the Clunkers”

“How to Find Key Charity Information”

Charity Screening: Childhood Leukemia Foundation

Question: Where Can I Find Charity Ratings Online?

Serious Givers

Charity Data & Ratings

FTC Warnings

IRS Publications