Suggest a Charity
If you haven't already done so, use our charity search to ensure that the charity isn't already in our database and review the information below to determine if the charity meets our criteria for evaluation.
Please Note: Charity Navigator currently evaluates more than 5,000 charitable organizations, making us America's largest charity evaluator many times over. Given the size of our database and the criteria we use to determine eligibility, we are confident that we presently report on the vast majority of charities which actively solicit and receive donations from generous Americans.
As a courtesy, we will continue to welcome your suggestions for charities to be added to our website. Please understand we have every intention of adding new charities in the future. But as we move forward, we do not anticipate adding charities at a rate comparable with prior years.
Which Charities Do We Evaluate?
Tax Status: We only evaluate organizations granted tax-exempt status under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code and file a Form 990. 501(c) (3) organizations are considered public charities and all donations to them are tax-exempt.
- We don't evaluate 501(c) (4) organizations. More
501(c) (4) organizations, like the Disabled American Veterans or the National Rifle Association of America, are allowed to spend a substantial portion of their revenue on lobbying our government and not every donation to them is tax-deductible. - We don't evaluate charities that are exempt from filing the Form 990. More
Many religious organizations, like the Salvation Army, are exempt under Internal Revenue Code from filing the Form 990. As a result, we lack sufficient data to evaluate their financial health. - We don't evaluate private foundations. More
Private foundations, like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, receive the majority of their money from only one individual, family or corporation. This differs from the public charities that Charity Navigator evaluates. Public charities have a broad-base of support from the general public as well as variety of other funding sources. The IRS requires that private foundations file a Form 990-PF which differs from the document public charities file. This makes it impossible for us to compare the financial performance of private foundations to public charities.
Sources of Revenue: We require public support to be more than $500,000 in the most recent fiscal year. More
Because our goal is to help individual givers, we evaluate only those charities that depend on support from individual givers.
Length of Operations: We require 4 years of Forms 990 to complete an evaluation.
Location: We only evaluate charities based in the U.S. and registered with the IRS. However, the scope of a charity's work can be international.
Type of Programs: At this time we are not adding any hospitals, hospital foundations, universities, colleges, land trusts, community foundations, or PBS stations.
If you believe the charity meets our criteria, please log in or register to proceed. It's simple and free.
