December 8, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Charity Navigator, a nonprofit evaluator, plans to develop a tool to tell donors which charities are actually making progress towards ending poverty or other goals, says Ken Berger, the group’s president, on his blog.
The watchdog has long been criticized for only measuring the financial health of organizations.
Mr. Berger writes that developing the new tool will likely take years and that unlike his group’s current approach, which relies on information from the Internal Revenue Service, Charity Navigator will probably need to collect the program-evaluation data directly from charities.
“To say that many of them will not be thrilled by such a prospect is an understatement! However, at the end of the day, I think that most will welcome this expansion of our rating system with the hopes that it will more comprehensively capture what they do and how they do it,” he writes.
Charity Navigator joins a growing list of organizations that seek to find a way to accurately and succinctly measure the ability of a charity to meets its goals.
Read The Chronicle’s article about one of the newest efforts, the Alliance for Effective Social Investing.
What do you think of Charity Navigator’s plan? Click on the comments link to share your views.
