‘Worth’: The Nation’s 100 ‘Best’ Charities

The financial magazine Worth has issued a list of what it calls the nation’s 100 best charities (December). The list was based on suggestions made to the magazine by people with expertise in the fields of health, human services, relief and development, the environment, and education. The organizations that made the list were not ranked, but classified by their field of endeavor.

The magazine said it tried to avoid simply ranking charities based on what percentage of its funds are spent on charitable programs and asked experts to focus on what the organizations had accomplished. Charity leaders were asked to rate the effectiveness of their peer organizations, as well as to discuss their own organizations’ accomplishments.

The magazine also examined the past three years of informational tax returns each charity had filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

In addition, the magazine published a list of 12 organizations donors should avoid, citing mainly groups that spend 50 percent or more of their money on administration and fund-raising expenses.

An article about the rankings, plus the lists, is available at the magazine’s Web site, http://www.worth.com.