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Charity Navigator relies on donations from users like you.
Learn About Impact Information:
Now in its second year of an innovative collaboration, Charity Navigator is publishing impact information prepared by charities and gathered by one of four partners: GuideStar, Classy, GlobalGiving, and 2018 new project partner, ImpactMatters.
This collaboration means information from GuideStar's Platinum and Gold Seals of Transparency, Classy's "Progress" Framework, GlobalGiving "GG Rewards" and ImpactMatters' Impact Reports will be displayed on the charity rating pages on our site. In addition, Charity Navigator will be adding these partner ratings for 12,000 charities that are not rated beginning in November 2018. While the addition of this third-party information won't affect a charity's rating on our site, it does signal the importance of sharing impact-related information as the next phase of accountability and transparency for public charities.
Frequently Asked Questions for Donors:
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Frequently Asked Questions for Charities:
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About Guidestar:
GuideStar, www.guidestar.org, helps people make better decisions about nonprofits and the work they do. Each year, more than 10 million donors, nonprofit leaders, grantmakers, government officials, academic researchers, and journalists use GuideStar data to make intelligent decisions about the social sector. GuideStar maintains profiles on 2.7 million currently and formerly IRS-recognized nonprofits. The profiles are populated with information from the IRS, directly from nonprofits, and via other partners in the nonprofit sector. In addition, users see GuideStar data on more than 200 philanthropic websites and applications. GuideStar is itself a 501(c)(3) public charity.
Gold Seal of Transparency:
GuideStar's Gold Seal of Transparency is earned by providing qualitative information about how the organization aims to achieve its goals.
These questions are from Charting Impact, an initiative of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Independent Sector, and GuideStar to develop a common format for nonprofits to report on their effectiveness.
The questions complement strategic planning, evaluation, and assessment that organizations already undertake and creates a report that lets charities share concise, detailed information about plans and progress with key stakeholders, including the public.
It was designed with several benefits in mind, including:
Platinum Seal of Transparency:
GuideStar's Platinum Seal of Transparency is earned by reporting metrics that show the progress an organization is making toward its mission.
Platinum can be earned by selecting a metric through the Common Results Catalog (a selection of more than 900 expert recognized metrics) or by creating a custom metric through the self-guided interface.
This data is provided directly by nonprofits to GuideStar via their Nonprofit Profile.
About GlobalGiving:
GlobalGiving is the largest global crowdfunding community connecting nonprofits, donors, and companies in nearly every country. For donors, GlobalGiving provides an additional layer of vetting and due diligence for each of its nonprofit partners every two years, which may include site visit verification. For nonprofits, GlobalGiving works to provide nonprofits access to the tools, training, and support they need to be more effective. GlobalGiving's aim is to drive more donations to more effective, community-led organizations. GG Rewards is the system that GlobalGiving uses to recognize and reward its nonprofit partners for their efforts to learn, improve, and grow their impact. Within the GG Rewards system, organizations receive points for their Effectiveness (commitment to learning) and Engagement (participation on the GlobalGiving community). These points will translate into the GG Rewards Status (Partner, Leader, or Superstar). GlobalGiving's nonprofit partners also receive badges (visible on their Charity Navigator profile) when they are verified by a GlobalGiving site visit, when they have demonstrated exceptional efforts to learn from feedback, improve, and grow their impact, or when they have been named as an exceptional nonprofit through GlobalGiving's Project of the Month program.
Superstar Status:
Superstars are vetted organizations that have demonstrated
high engagement and/or effectiveness over the past year. They have earned Engagement points by
writing
on-time project reports, and thanking GlobalGiving donors, and/or they have earned
Effectiveness
points
by listening to feedback from community members, acting on that information, and demonstrating
how
they've
learned from their actions. Superstars are most likely to be recommended to corporate partners
and
are
eligible for special matching campaigns and training programs.
Leader Status:
Leaders are vetted organizations that have demonstrated
active engagement and/or effectiveness over the past year. They have earned Engagement points
by
writing
on-time project reports, and thanking GlobalGiving donors, and/or they have earned
Effectiveness
points
by listening to feedback from community members, acting on that information, and demonstrating
how
they've
learned from their actions. In addition to the benefits that are available to Partner
organizations,
Leaders are more likely to be recommended to a corporate partner, are eligible for special
matching
campaigns
and training programs.
Partner Status:
Partner organizations have been vetted by GlobalGiving
and are in good standing. As Partners, these organizations have access to GlobalGiving's tools,
training,
and support.
About Classy Awards and Framework:
Classy is a social enterprise that creates world-class online fundraising tools for nonprofits, modernizing the giving experience to accelerate social impact around the world. Based in San Diego, CA, Classy is trusted by organizations of all sizes, from the fastest-growing nonprofits like Team Rubicon and The Trevor Project to some of the world's largest social organizations such as Acumen Fund, Robin Hood Foundation, and Shriners Hospital for Children.
Classy created the Annual Classy Awards to recognize the innovative work of nonprofits around the world. Since 2009, thousands of organizations have been recognized through the Classy Awards. Nominees complete a data-driven framework that helps them to understand and articulate the impact of their programs.
Classy Framework: Provides a 360-degree, data-driven perspective of a program's social performance by combining qualitative insights on program strategies and beneficiaries, with quantitative metrics on social problems, short term outputs and long term intended outcomes.
Key components include:
If you have any questions about the framework you can learn more here.
About ImpactMatters:
ImpactMatters connects donors seeking high impact with nonprofits that actually deliver high impact, helping both groups achieve their mission. Toward that goal, ImpactMatters helps nonprofits and their donors calculate and report cost-effectiveness: the dollar cost of achieving their social outcomes. Calculating cost-effectiveness is key to effective giving. ImpactMatters offers two services to nonprofits and their funders: guided impact reporting and impact audits.
Guided Impact Reporting (GIR) is a free and simple-to-use app hosted on the ImpactMatters website. It takes the nonprofit's data through a tightly scripted series of questions to generate an estimate of cost-effectiveness: the dollar cost of achieving the nonprofit's mission-driven outcomes (for example, $5,000 to save a life). GIR's design generates reliable estimates. The tight steps require the nonprofit to grapple with calculations that many otherwise overlook: what success would participants achieve had they not received the nonprofit's help (so-called counterfactual successes); how does the nonprofit's intervention affect non-participating third parties (so-called externalities).
Impact Audits: ImpactMatters conducts impact audits, short-term engagements during which an ImpactMatters audit team generates an independent estimate of the auditee's cost-effectiveness (the cost of achieving the nonprofit's social outcomes). The impact audit is based on the nonprofit's internal data and on findings from the research literature on comparable interventions. The impact audit also grades the quality of the data used to produce the quantitative estimates, reflecting the confidence that the audit team has in its estimates.
