Description
ounded in 2001, Charity Navigator has become the nation's largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities. In our quest to help donors, our team of professional analysts has examined tens of thousands of non-profit financial documents. We've used this knowledge to develop an unbiased, objective, numbers-based rating system to assess over 5,000 of America's best-known and some lesser known, but worthy, charities.
Specifically, Charity Navigator's rating system examines two broad areas of a charity's performance; their Financial Health and their Accountability & Transparency. 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. In the not-too-distant future, we plan to also rate charities’ reporting of their results. We provide these ratings so that charitable givers/ social investors can make intelligent giving decisions, and so that the nonprofit sector can improve its performance.
Last year alone, we had almost five million visits by donors who used the site that TIME Magazine called "One of America's 50 Coolest Websites for 2006." Additionally, the site is a two-time Forbes award winner for "Best of the Web," was selected by Reader's Digest as one of the "100 Best Things about America," and was chosen by PC World as "One of America's Top Websites." In 2007, BusinessWeek inducted Charity Navigator into its "Philanthropy Hall of Fame" for "revolutionizing the process of giving." Charity Navigator was singled out in 2006, 2007 and 2008 by Kiplinger's Financial Magazine as "One of the Best Services to Make Life Easier" and in 2011 as one of the "20 Financial Innovations You Can't Afford to Ignore."
Charity Navigator's leaders have provided expert analysis and commentary on the charitable sector for The Factor with Bill O'Reilly, most CNN programs, and each of the network morning shows--NBC's The Today Show, ABC's Good Morning America, and CBS's The Early Show. We have also appeared on FOX News, Fox Business News, CNBC, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, and Comedy Central's The Daily Show, among others, and served as contributors to National Public Radio programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. We have been profiled in Fast Company magazine, Contribute, CFO Magazine, and The Washington Post, and quoted in nearly every major American newspaper or weekly magazine. We have published editorials and articles on charity accountability, the role of government regulation in the charitable sector, fund-raising ethics, and non-profit leadership in such newspapers as The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and The Los Angeles Times.
In order to expand our reach and better meet the needs of our users, Charity Navigator has worked hard to establish strategic partnerships with industry leaders in other sectors. We partner with CNN to identify and highlight charities for the global network's Impact initiative, with Foundation Source to supply philanthropists with quantitative research data to use in making charitable investments, with Network For Good to offer the convenience of online giving and with GreatNonprofits to offer stakeholder reviews.
Charity Navigator accepts no funding from the charities that we evaluate, ensuring that our ratings remain objective. Furthermore, in our commitment to help America's philanthropists of all levels make informed giving/ social investment decisions, we refuse to charge our users for this trusted data. As a result, Charity Navigator, a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization itself, depends on support from individuals, corporations and foundations that believe we provide a much-needed service to America's charitable donors.
