Mission, Vision, and Goals
OUR HISTORY
Charity Navigator was founded in 2001 by Pat and Marion Dugan, who were passionate about charitable giving and social investing but witnessed report after report of scandals at local and national charities. Marion and Pat decided to create an unbiased source of information that would provide charitable givers and social investors across the country with every type of charitable interest the tools necessary to make informed giving decisions.
The following timeline recounts some of the key events in the history of Charity Navigator.
2001
Charity Navigator is founded. Pat and Marion Dugan envision an unbiased and transparent source of information that would assist givers from every state, and with every type of charitable interest, in finding a charity to support.
April 2002
Charity Navigator launches as a new, free service cataloging the financial health of over eleven hundred charities. Upon launch, Charity Navigator becomes the largest independent charity evaluating service in the world.
December 2004
To help donors avoid becoming victims of mailing-list appeals, Charity Navigator begins to assess each charity's commitment to keeping donors' personal information confidential.
January 2007
Charity Navigator partners with Network for Good to add the ability for donors to give through its website. Twenty thousand donors take advantage of this tool during the course of the year, giving more than $2.6 million to more than 2,200 of the charities rated by Charity Navigator.
December 2007
The IRS releases the newly designed Form 990. This is the first major redesign of the document since 1979.
Charity Navigator begins to make plans to use the additional data provided in the new Form 990 to expand its rating system.
April 2008
Charity Navigator rates 5,000 charities.
September 2011
After collecting data for more than a year, Charity Navigator launches an expanded, two-dimensional rating system that includes a measurement of each charity's Accountability & Transparency.
April 2012
Charity Navigator turns 10!
December 2013
The Board and staff of Charity Navigator ring the New York Stock Exchange Opening Bell!
June 2016
Charity Navigator launches its enhanced Financial Health rating methodology. This update captures an organization’s long-term capacity and health by allowing for higher scores in program expense, removing the volatile primary revenue growth metric, including three-year averaging for non-capacity metrics, and introducing a new capacity metric, Liabilities to Assets Ratio (compare the new Financial Health rating metrics to the prior metrics).
September 2016
Charity Navigator launches a CN Advisory System designed to protect donors from charity scams and alleged misconduct by providing unbiased and objective information that ensures donors are provided information that may influence their giving decisions.
December 2016
The Charity Navigator community came together and donated $8.9 million to 7,907 charities via the Giving Basket.
April 2017
Charity Navigator turns 15!
August 2017
With Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, and the earthquakes in Mexico, Charity Navigator sees it's third largest period of giving ever, behind December 30th and 31st of 2016.
November 2017
Partnering with sector leaders GuideStar, Classy, and GlobalGiving, Charity Navigator launches impact statements on profiles of over 2,400 charities.
December 2017
With December 30th and 31st, Charity Navigator sees the highest days of giving on the platform yet.
