Search for Chances at Charity Navigator

Founded 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 9,000 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 more than eleven million visits by donors who used the site that has received praise  from TIME Magazine, Forbes , Reader’s Digest ,PC World, BusinessWeek , and Kiplinger’s Financial Magazine. Our leaders have provided expert analysis and commentary on the charitable sector for 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.

Charity Navigator doesn’t knowingly solicit contributions from charities we evaluate.  Any donation that a rated charity may choose to make that could impact, or be perceived to impact, our ratings objectivity is returned to the donor. We do this in order to ensure 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 501 (c) (3) public charity itself, depends on support from individuals, corporations and foundations that believe we provide a much-needed service to America’s charitable donors. Please support Charity Navigator now so we can continue to help donors make informed choices.