This week in charity evaluations, Charity Navigator, which is the most popular charity evaluator in the US, and GuideStar, which is the world’s largest database about nonprofits, said that they will work together for the first time to share more information about nonprofits and their effectiveness. It’s a small step in the right direction for both organizations.

Who knows? Maybe the two organizations, whose missions are aligned, will merge someday. It’s been discussed, Thatcher and Jacob Harold, the CEO of GuideStar, told me, although nothing is imminent, they say.

Here’s how the new collaboration will work: Beginning on Giving Tuesday in November, Charity Navigator (CN) will publish information about goals, progress and results that charities have provided to GuideStar. It will also note whether charities have achieved Gold or Platinum status on GuideStar; charities achieve status by providing qualitative or quantitative information about their outcomes. This moves CN closer to reporting on what matters about nonprofits: their impact.

 

Read the source article at Nonprofit Chronicles

Charity Navigator now regrets its longstanding focus on overhead. Thatcher says: “Let’s stop talking about overhead ratios and let’s start talking about outcomes.”

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Charities can achieve Platinum and Gold status by reporting on their goals and results, but they decide for themselves what to measure and how to measure it. The value of that is more than zero, but not a whole lot more.

This article on charity evaluations was written by Marc Gunther at Nonprofit Chronicles.