Most effective charities?

cepheus

I was listening to the BBC world service early yesterday morning drowsing, and someone they were interviewing was talking about charity shortcomings, and they mentioned one of the more effective ones. I can't seem to remember which one. The search engine for the world service doesn't work well, can anyone find it or suggest who it was?

Anyway, after searching around the web I found this site which examines how well programs actually work – i.e., their effects on the people they serve and rates them (it generally ignores cost ratios and such financial babble). It is a US site but lists many international charities:

http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

Perhaps if anyone else thinks they can identify effective charities or similar sites they could post it here.


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oldtoolie

There have been efforts to do this sort of thing in the UK. Intelligent Giving, GuideStar UK and Development Ratings. But none of these are currently working.

The charity I work for, Tools for Self Reliance, was profiled by Development Rating but their website is down when I looked today.

The Charity Commission gives access to the annual reports of charities and some basic charts on their spending.

What I do when I want to evaluate a charity:
Google: read news items
Website: what does the charity's website say? Do they explain who they are, where they came from, why they do it, how they do it and what the results are.
Charity Commission: review the annual report.
Call or write to the charity asking relevant questions.

Then go by your MSE instincts -- if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

iwant2asave

I am looking for a really efficient charity that pays maximum % to the cause it represents. Does anyone have any idea how I can easily find this information - perhaps a good website exists similar to those mentioned above?

WolfSong2000

Well, speaking as someone who volunteers for a small, yet very effective charity (and I've done so for the last 10 years since the charity started up), what I can say is as a general rule (and there will of course be exceptions) avoid the big charities. focus your energy on looking at small-medium sized charities and ask them pertinent questions about how they utilise the money they receive. The charity I volunteer with, for example, is based abroad, and pays a few local staff in the country in which it operates, but all UK staff are unpaid volunteers, which keeps costs to a minimum. All the money we receive goes directly where it's needed and we work a lot through word of mouth in terms of advertising. people who've volunteered/worked with our charity know it's legit and that the money goes where it's needed, so they then tell their friends who get involved, etc. So speaking to your friends could be one way of getting involved.

Me personally, I have started doing a lot of work with Somaliland (the country) recently on top of my other voluntary work (which has nothing to do with Somaliland). Obviously I am UK based, but have recently discovered a Somaliland based charity called Candlelight who help local communities with education, etc, and who are legit (the head of the charity has won at least one major award for his humanitarian efforts). I'll be spending the next few weeks doing some more digging and finding out if there's any way I can help them (my current efforts with regards to Somaliland are related to trying to get the UK government to respect it's own laws and recognise Somaliland as a sovereign country instead of pretending it's a breakaway region of Somalia. The UK has documentation stating that it recognises Somaliland as a sovereign state, but it's currently choosing to ignore this for political reasons).

But yeah...if you want details of the initial charity I mentioned which I volunteer for, just message me. As for the Somaliland one, Candlelight - I've only recently found them myself, but am happy they're genuine and legit. If you want any info on Somaliland, again, just ask.

LittleJo

Hi
I tink that you will find that the Salavation Army are extremely efficient and use whatever money they get very effectively.
I like the fact that I can go along and see how my donations are used.
Jo

cepheus

iwant2asave wrote: »

I am looking for a really efficient charity that pays maximum % to the cause it represents. Does anyone have any idea how I can easily find this information - perhaps a good website exists similar to those mentioned above?

THE US site GiveWell doesn't believe that is a good criteria in itself. They base the effectiveness of a charity on the following:

• Strong documented track record. Casual donors should not fund experiments; they should fund charities that can and do demonstrate their impact in terms of changing lives for the better. More on this criterion here.
• Highly cost-effective activities. We seek charities that provide high "bang for the buck," in terms of changing many lives (significantly) for relatively little money. Available cost-effectiveness estimates involve a great deal of uncertainty and approximation; we place limited weight on estimated cost-effectiveness, but we are mindful of extremely large differences. More on this criterion here.
• Room for more funding. It isn't enough to identify a strong program; we seek to identify strong programs that can productively use more donor funding. More on this criterion here.
• Transparency and accountability to donors. Recommended charities must be willing to share enough in-depth information about their work that we can assess them on the above criteria.

Savvy_Sue

That sounds like a good checklist.

WhiteHorse

Of the larger charities, the only one worth a damn anymore is the RNLI.

Their administrative tail is very small and their frontline staff (most of whom are volunteers), put their lives on the line for total strangers.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Alexd_2

WhiteHorse wrote: »

Of the larger charities, the only one worth a damn anymore is the RNLI.

Their administrative tail is very small and their frontline staff (most of whom are volunteers), put their lives on the line for total strangers.

It doesn't get any better than that.

So are you claiming that charities such as macmillan and cancer research uk aren't worth the money we raise for them. Im sorry but where do you think we would be without them?

edenbank6

iwant2asave wrote: »

I am looking for a really efficient charity that pays maximum % to the cause it represents. Does anyone have any idea how I can easily find this information - perhaps a good website exists similar to those mentioned above?

It's perhaps worth bearing in mind the three "Es" of "value for money": Efficiency, Effectiveness and Economy. Just looking for a charity which spends a lot of its income on the chosen cause might actually fail on all these criteria whereas one which uses a higher percentage of income on that nasty old administration might be paying professionals to ensure that the outcomes from the front-line expenditure achieve something really positive for the greatest possible number of beneficiaries.

HiMyNameIsLauren

Big or small, you've really got to see their work for yourself to understand truly how effectively they are. I know of a scientist whom does work for a large cancer charity - he's department has to apply for grants from the charity. Do you know how they get new grants? In layman's terms, "We're coming very close to a solution for X, but we've run out of time/money on this grant".

This really got me thinking - a lot of these big charities (I'm sure small too) are literally turning the wheels for keeping people employed.

Really hard to put KPIs to charities, as some supply services such as Salvation Army where number of people being fed or housed is important, while cancer reasearch, important research may take years to accomplish something, if anything.