Charity Navigator

I’ve written profiles of nearly 500 non-profit organizations with entry level jobs. I’ve seen all kinds of organizations, but I always find it hard to evaluate how effective they are. Data isn’t nearly as prevalent in the non-profit world as it is in business (though that’s changing), so it’s hard to get a sense of which organizations are doing the most with their dollars. Luckily, there’s an independent third party that evaluates non-profits called Charity Navigator. They’re based in Glen Rock, NJ, and you’re probably familiar with them if you’ve ever spent much time on non-profits’ websites. Charity Navigator seems to have become the gold standard for determining which charities are most suitable to donate to.

Find Your Way

If you want to understand Charity Navigator, you really need to dig into their methodology. They rate organizations on a scale of four stars across two categories–Financial and Accountability & Transparency. Because publicly funded charities are legally required to release their financial information, Charity Navigator is able to dive deep into the numbers to compute a rating. The obvious question (though it’s a bit meta) is what is Charity Navigator’s Charity Navigator rating? They don’t have one, and you can find an explanation of why here. Take some time to browse Charity Navigator and use it to look up some of your favorite non-profits to see how they stack up. If holding charities accountable sounds like something that you want to be part of, then you should look at both Charity Navigator’s Jobs page and their job postings on Idealist. The latter includes a posting for an Associate Program Analyst, which is a perfect fit for a new grad.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• CharityNavigator.org
• Jobs at Charity Navigator
• About Charity Navigator
• Staff at Charity Navigator
• Charity Navigator’s Annual Report
• Charity Navigator News

Have you used Charity Navigator?