Press Releases

• Country's Largest Charity Evaluator Expands Analysis
• The Most Charity-Conscious Cities in America
• Foundation Source and Charity Navigator Announce Charity Reports, Offering Detailed Assessments of Charities Prior to Funding
• Giving to Haiti and Chile Relief Charities Might Ease This Year's Tax-Time Burden
• Public Service Announcement: Tax Tips
• More Than A Dozen Children's Charities Earn High Ratings
• Recession Likely To Curb Holiday Donations

Page Tools

• Print this page
• E-mail this page

Charity Navigator Blog

• Can You Top This??!!
• $1 Million Given Already This Year
• Today’s Video – Telephone Solicitations
• Alliance for Effective Social Investment Seeks Your Feedback
• Coins And Trinkets – Do We Want It In Our Charity Appeals?
• Visit blog site

Houston Charities Do More With Less Than Those in L.A., New York

Charity Navigator study analyzes and ranks nonprofit sectors for top 20 U.S. cities.

MAHWAH, N.J., July 30, 2003:  When it comes to charity, not all U.S. cities are equal, according to a newly released study conducted by Charity Navigator, America's largest charity evaluator. The study shows that Houston's largest charities are more efficient, Baltimore's charities raise more money, San Diego's charities are growing faster, Cleveland's charities are richer, and New York's charities face the most competitive market.

Charity Navigator's free online ratings assess the financial health of charities using data taken from each organization's annual filings with the Internal Revenue Service. After analyzing two broad areas of a charity's financial health -- Organizational Efficiency and Organizational Capacity -- Charity Navigator assigns each organization a rating ranging from zero to four stars. The complete database of 2,500 updated nonprofit evaluations can be accessed at www.charitynavigator.org.

In its study, Charity Navigator compared the median performance and size of the largest nonprofits in 20 top metropolitan markets. Those markets account for 57% of the charities evaluated by Charity Navigator. They generate 63% of the total revenue and 64% of the total spending. New York was the most represented market, with 335 charities. Washington, D.C. (250) and San Francisco (94) were second and third. Phoenix was the least represented, with 26 charities, while Pittsburgh and Cleveland each had 27 charities. Other findings include:

• Size: In terms of median contributions, revenues, and expenses, Baltimore and Chicago are home to the largest charities, while Washington, D.C. and Dallas are home to the smallest charities.
• Wealth: Charities in Cleveland and Chicago are generally richer in assets and working capital than charities in other cities, while charities in Phoenix and Dallas are less financially secure.
• Efficiency: Houston is home to the nation's most efficient charities, with charities in Cleveland and Minneapolis-St. Paul also ranking highly. The least efficient charities are found in the nation's most populated market, New York, with Atlanta and Philadelphia charities also performing less efficiently.
• Annual Growth: San Diego is home to the fastest growing charities, with Atlanta and Phoenix also growing at unusually fast rates. Charities in Pittsburgh and Dallas are growing at the slowest rates.
• Overall Performance: Houston's charities earned the nation's highest median ratings from Charity Navigator, and Boston and Baltimore were also highly rated. Miami's charities earned the lowest ratings, with Phoenix and Los Angeles also ranking at the bottom.

"Charity is alive and well in all 20 of these great cities," said Charity Navigator executive director Trent Stamp. "But each city presents unique challenges and opportunities to the charities that call it home. Our study is an attempt to isolate those differences and to help donors and nonprofit leaders throughout the country better understand the climates in which they operate.

"The fact that donors get 6.38 cents more out of every dollar donated in Houston than they do in New York is an important realization for the charities and donors in each of those cities. It doesn't mean that New York's charities are wasteful or poorly managed. Rather, it means that the cost of doing business in New York is greater and its sector is more crowded. Recognizing these differences is essential to the effective management and evaluation of nonprofits. Given the extraordinary potential of this kind of market research, we look forward to discussing the study's implications with philanthropic leaders throughout the country."

Charity Navigator evaluations encompass charities in all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, in addition to hundreds of organizations that operate internationally. The recently updated site also features original opinion pieces by Charity Navigator experts and new top-10 and bottom-10 lists, ranking efficient and inefficient organizations in a number of categories.

The Charity Navigator rating system uses publicly available tax returns (Forms 990) filed with the Internal Revenue Service to evaluate a charity's overall financial health. Specifically, Charity Navigator looks at an organization's fundraising efficiency, fundraising expenses, program expenses and administrative expenses to show users how efficiently the charity operates on a day-to-day basis. To assess the charity's capacity to sustain its programs over time, Charity Navigator looks at average annual growth of operating revenue, average annual growth of programs and services and working capital ratio. Based upon how the charity rates in each area, it is assigned a zero- to four-star rating.

Charity Navigator is itself a not-for-profit organization. The service is free, and the site is easily navigable by charity name, location or type of activity. Links are provided for all evaluated charities allowing potential donors to easily review each charity's website and quickly send a contribution.

About Charity Navigator:
Charity Navigator guides intelligent giving by evaluating the effectiveness and financial health of more than 2,500 charities. By accepting no advertising or donations from the organizations it evaluates, Charity Navigator ensures that its evaluations are unbiased. A 501 (c)(3) organization, Charity Navigator can be accessed at www.charitynavigator.org, or by telephone at (201) 818-1288, and by mail at 1200 MacArthur Blvd, 2nd Floor, Mahwah, N.J., 07430.

- # # # -