Frequently Asked Questions
General FAQ
Won’t a charity provide me with all the information I need to make an informed giving decision?
Why is CharityWatch’s information an indispensable tool for informed donors?
How does CharityWatch decide which organizations to evaluate and rate?
How often does CharityWatch update a charity's rating and other information?
What is CharityWatch?
CharityWatch is an independent charity watchdog founded in 1992. We work in the public interest, giving donors the independent information and analysis they need to make informed giving decisions and holding charities accountable for how they raise and spend donor dollars.
Our work functions much like financial journalism. CharityWatch analysts dig deeply into the finances and operations of nonprofit organizations, examining audited financial statements, IRS tax filings, fundraising contracts, and other reporting to uncover what the numbers really mean. We don't simply accept charities' self-reported information at face value or run it through automated formulas. We scrutinize the underlying financial reporting, organizational structures, accounting practices, and fundraising activities, and make our own independent assessments.
We publish what we find. Our work takes the form of charity ratings as well as original reporting on nonprofit finances, fundraising, governance, transparency, lawsuits, regulatory actions, and other issues important to donors. We also work with investigative journalists, providing financial analysis and nonprofit expertise that helps bring important stories to the public.
CharityWatch is not a trade association, charity promotional platform, or consulting service. We work for donors and the public, not the organizations we evaluate. That independence allows us to ask difficult questions, challenge charity reporting when the numbers don't tell the whole story, and publish our findings without being beholden to the organizations or special interests we scrutinize.
Why do I need CharityWatch?
Your charitable dollars are too important to give without reliable, independent information about the organizations asking for your support.
Charities are responsible for reporting their own financial information, and fundraising materials are designed to persuade you to give, not to provide an independent assessment of how an organization operates. Even charity ratings and other third-party information can sometimes rely heavily on self-reported data without examining the underlying financial reporting necessary to understand what the numbers really mean.
CharityWatch does that deeper work for you. Our analysts scrutinize charity finances, fundraising practices, governance, and other information from the perspective of donors, not the organizations seeking their contributions. We identify issues that automated calculations can miss, make analytical adjustments when necessary, and report information that charities may not prominently disclose themselves.
You deserve to know as much as reasonably possible about where your money is going before you give it away.
Won’t a charity provide me with all the information I need to make an informed giving decision?
Charities can be an important source of information about their missions, programs, accomplishments, and finances. But the information a charity provides about itself is not independent. Like any organization seeking your financial support, a charity has an incentive to present its work and financial results in the most favorable light.
Charity financial reporting can also be inaccurate, inconsistent, incomparable, or incomplete. For example, charities may report some fundraising costs as program expenses, making their programs appear more efficient than they otherwise would. Related organizations may report their finances separately even though understanding how an organization is operating on the whole is necessary to see how donor dollars are ultimately spent. And the same types of activities may be accounted for differently from one charity to another, making simple comparisons of reported percentages potentially misleading.
Most donors are not accountants or nonprofit financial professionals, nor should they have to be. CharityWatch independently analyzes the financial reporting behind the numbers, makes adjustments when appropriate, and provides the context donors need to understand what a charity's reported figures actually mean.
A charity can tell you its story. CharityWatch helps you independently evaluate it.
Why is CharityWatch’s information an indispensable tool for informed donors?
Charity financial reporting is complex, and the numbers charities report do not always mean what they appear to mean. Two charities can report similar financial efficiency while using very different accounting methods, organizational structures, or approaches to allocating expenses. Important information may also be scattered across audited financial statements, tax filings, state filings, fundraising contracts, and other sources that most donors do not have the time or expertise to analyze.
CharityWatch does that work for you. Our analysts examine the underlying financial reporting, identify inconsistencies and other issues that can distort reported results, and make adjustments when necessary to provide more meaningful comparisons. We also look beyond financial efficiency to provide information about governance, transparency, executive compensation, asset reserves, fundraising practices, and other issues donors may want to consider.
Most importantly, CharityWatch provides independent analysis from the perspective of donors. Our ratings and reporting are not produced for the benefit of the charities we evaluate or the nonprofit industry. They are designed to help you ask better questions, recognize potential warning signs, and decide for yourself which organizations deserve your charitable dollars.
How can I support CharityWatch?
CharityWatch relies on charitable contributions to fund our independent ratings, financial analysis, original reporting, and work with investigative journalists. Support from individuals and private foundations makes it possible for us to conduct this work on behalf of donors and the public while maintaining the independence essential to our watchdog role.
You can support CharityWatch by making a tax-deductible contribution in any amount. Individuals can donate directly, include CharityWatch in their estate plans, or support our work through donor-advised funds, retirement distributions, and other charitable giving vehicles. Private foundations and other institutional funders can support our work through grants and charitable contributions consistent with our commitment to independence.
Your contributions allow CharityWatch to remain independent of the charities we evaluate and the nonprofit industry we scrutinize. They help fund the experienced analysts who dig deeply into charity finances, ask difficult questions, and publish ratings and original reporting without being beholden to the organizations or special interests affected by our work.
Who funds CharityWatch?
Nearly 90% of CharityWatch's annual contributed support comes from relatively small donations from individual donors. Most of our remaining charitable support comes from small family foundation donors. CharityWatch also earns a modest amount of income from investments and other sources.
Who funds a watchdog matters. CharityWatch does not charge charities to be rated and does not accept payments from charities in exchange for favorable ratings or reviews or for the right to publicize their CharityWatch ratings. We carefully avoid funding relationships that could compromise, or appear to compromise, our independence, including funding from charity trade associations and businesses whose financial interests depend substantially on the nonprofit organizations we scrutinize.
This funding model allows us to work for donors and the public, follow the facts wherever they lead, ask difficult questions, and publish our findings without being beholden to the organizations or special interests affected by our reporting.
Does CharityWatch sell, rent, or exchange its donors’ names and contact information with other organizations or businesses?
No. CharityWatch respects donor privacy and does not sell, rent, or exchange donor information with other charities, third-party marketers, fundraisers, or other organizations for their own solicitation or marketing purposes.
Like any organization, CharityWatch works with service providers that need limited donor information to perform essential functions on our behalf, such as processing contributions, printing and mailing our publications and correspondence, and maintaining our systems. We share information with these providers only as necessary to perform those services for CharityWatch.
We do not treat our donor list as a commodity. The personal information you provide to support CharityWatch is not sold or traded to others for their fundraising or marketing purposes.
How does CharityWatch decide which organizations to evaluate and rate?
CharityWatch is a watchdog organization, not a nonprofit trade association or data aggregator. Our work functions more like investigative journalism than automated data processing. Just as a newspaper cannot investigate and publish an in-depth article about every organization in the country, CharityWatch cannot conduct a deep financial analysis of every nonprofit.
Each CharityWatch rating represents substantial analyst time spent manually examining a charity's audited financial statements, IRS tax filings, and other reporting; understanding its organizational structure and accounting; identifying issues that may distort its reported financial efficiency; and making analytical adjustments when appropriate. Our ratings are deep dives, not quick, automated calculations performed using the self-reported, unaudited data found in charity tax filings.
This approach necessarily limits the number of charities we can evaluate. CharityWatch currently rates about 700 charities and other nonprofit organizations. We generally focus on larger organizations that receive $1 million or more in annual public support, are of interest to donors nationally, and have been in existence for at least three years.
Our selection process is donor-driven. We strive to cover the charities members of the public are most interested in and organizations for which independent analysis may be particularly valuable. We therefore give priority to charities that spend a significant portion of their budgets on fundraising and other overhead, as well as organizations that conduct substantial direct-mail or telemarketing fundraising, since these are among the charities donors most frequently ask us about.
CharityWatch does not accept requests from charities asking to be rated. We also do not charge charities to be evaluated, listed on our website or in our publications, or to publicize a CharityWatch rating. These policies help preserve our independence and ensure that the charities we select for review are determined by donor interest and our watchdog priorities, not by the organizations seeking favorable exposure.
CharityWatch does not rate churches, synagogues, mosques, political action committees (PACs), fraternal clubs, colleges, or local institutions such as hospitals and museums. We do report on separate human and social welfare organizations affiliated with religious groups, including the Salvation Army, Red Cloud Indian School, and others.
You can view the current list of charities rated by CharityWatch and our Top-Rated Charities on our website.
With additional resources, CharityWatch could expand the number of organizations we evaluate. However, preserving our independence and journalistic integrity requires us to carefully protect CharityWatch from funding relationships that could create real or perceived conflicts of interest, including funding from the charities we evaluate, nonprofit trade associations, and consultants or other businesses whose revenues depend on the charities we scrutinize.
How often does CharityWatch update a charity’s rating and other information?
CharityWatch generally conducts a new, in-depth analysis of a charity's financial efficiency, governance, and compensation every other fiscal year. We may review organizations more frequently when ratings fluctuate significantly, there is a history of governance concerns, substantial assets are held in reserve, or other circumstances warrant closer scrutiny.
Each CharityWatch rating is essentially a mini financial investigation. Our analysts do not simply import numbers from a charity's tax Form 990 to recalculate a score. We examine audited financial statements, tax filings, organizational structures, related entities, accounting practices, fundraising activities, and other reporting to understand what the numbers actually mean. We identify inconsistencies, investigate unusual items, and make analytical adjustments when necessary before publishing our findings. This research-intensive approach is also why CharityWatch focuses on conducting meaningful analysis of a limited number of charities rather than producing automated ratings of thousands of organizations.
Charity ratings necessarily reflect historical financial information. Audited financial statements and IRS tax filings are not available immediately after a charity's fiscal year ends and may not become publicly available for many months. The appearance of a newer tax filing online therefore does not mean that a CharityWatch rating can or should be automatically updated. A new rating requires a new analysis.
Basic information such as a charity's name, address, website, phone number, and names used in fundraising is updated as we become aware of changes. The financial year analyzed is identified on each charity's rating page so donors can see the period covered by our analysis.General information about a charity is updated on charitywatch.org as we become aware of a change. This includes changes to a charity's name, address, website, phone number, or names a charity uses to solicit potential donors.
What is the benefit of receiving CharityWatch's print publication, the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report?
The Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report provides more limited information than is available on charitywatch.org. CharityWatch is happy to provide a print copy of our publication, the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report, to current donors with limited or no Internet access, to libraries, or to donors who prefer reading a print publication. The Guide print publication is published twice per year and contains CharityWatch's most updated information as of the time of publication.
Charities in the Guide are organized by category, and CharityWatch provides the following information for each, if applicable: Name; an "open/closed book" transparency benchmark; contact phone number; program and fundraising efficiency percentages; a letter grade rating; the top three salaries range at the charity; and symbols that indicate whether a charity: fails to meet CW's privacy policy benchmark; or is organized as a nonprofit unable to accept tax-deductible contributions. The Guide contains charts listing charities whose ratings have been downgraded due to high assets, a list of charity compensation packages of $1 million or more (at any of the more than 600 charities rated by CharityWatch), and select articles from charitywatch.org.
Charitywatch.org contains the above information in a searchable format, along with more extensive and up-to-date information on the charities we rate than can be offered in the Guide print publication since CharityWatch's website is updated on a continuous basis rather than twice per year, and is not limited by the space constraints of a print publication.
Help FAQ
How do I login to CharityWatch’s website?
How do I become a CharityWatch supporter?
What additional information do I have access to once I log in?
How do I know when my CharityWatch account expires?
I forgot my username and/or password. What do I do?
How do I obtain a receipt or confirmation e-mail for my supporter contribution?
How do I obtain access to CharityWatch's full website for my library?
What does a CharityWatch account include if I do not have Internet access?
How do I login to CharityWatch’s website?
Type your username and password into the fields provided on the Login page to access your account. If you are a CharityWatch supporter but have never logged in to our website, please visit our Claim code page for instructions on setting up your account. If you do not yet have a CharityWatch account, you can set up a free or paid account here, then follow the instructions in your donation receipt to login to your account.
How do I become a CharityWatch Supporter?
Contributions of $75 or more help to ensure that CharityWatch can continue operating, and support our financial analysis, charity ratings, investigative work, and the help we provide to journalists. Please visit our Join page and then follow the instructions in your donation receipt to login to your account and/or sign up to receive our paper publication, the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report.
What additional information do I have access to once I log in?
As a CharityWatch supporter, once logged in you will have unrestricted access to the ratings, governance benchmarks, salaries data, and analysts notes for all of the over 600 charities rated by CharityWatch, as well as our chart of High Asset charities.
How do I know when my CharityWatch account expires?
Login to your account to check the status of your account using your username and password. If you are a CharityWatch supporter who has never logged in to our website, please visit our Claim code page for instructions on setting up your account. Once set up, you may log-in and view your account expiration date.
I forgot my username and/or password. What do I do?
Your username is the e-mail address you used when you set up your online account. If you know your username but forgot your password, you may reset your password yourself on the Login page.
If you forgot both your username and your password, please Contact CharityWatch for assistance.
How do I obtain a receipt or confirmation e-mail for my contribution?
If you donated online through charitywatch.org, you will automatically receive an email receipt for your donation which you may use for tax purposes. It will also contain instructions for creating your account if you are a new supporter. The confirmation email may take several minutes to reach your inbox. If you do not receive it, please check your “bulk mail” or “spam mail” folder.
If you donated via paper check, CharityWatch will send you a hardcopy donation receipt via U.S. Postal mail. These receipts are processed and mailed once per year, so please allow several months to receive your receipt. If you require a receipt sooner, please Contact us.
How do I obtain access to CharityWatch's full website for my library?
CharityWatch regrets that we are unable to provide online access to restricted areas of our site to libraries at this time. However, we make our print publication, the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report (Guide), available to our valued library supporters. To obtain the Guide for your library, please become a supporter by mailing a check payable to CharityWatch in the amount of $75 to:
CharityWatch
Attn: Supporter
PO Box 578460
Chicago, IL 60657
What does a CharityWatch account include if I do not have Internet access?
Some of our valued supporters do not have reliable access to the Internet. We make our print publication, the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report (Guide), available to our valued supporters who lack reliable Internet access or who prefer to read a print publication.
To receive the Guide print publication, please become a supporter by mailing a check payable to CharityWatch in the amount of $75 to:
CharityWatch
Attn: Supporter
PO Box 578460
Chicago, IL 60657
Your account includes two issues of the Guide print publication, published in the Spring/Summer (June/July) and again in the Winter (November/December). Please allow up to six weeks to receive your first Guide. Charities in the Guide are organized by category, and CharityWatch provides the following information for each, if applicable: Name; an "open/closed book" transparency benchmark; contact phone number; program and fundraising efficiency percentages; a letter grade rating; the top three salaries range at the charity; and symbols that indicate whether a charity: fails to meet CW's privacy policy benchmark; or is organized as a nonprofit unable to accept tax-deductible contributions. The Guide contains charts listing charities whose ratings have been downgraded due to high assets, a chart of charity compensation packages of $1 million or more, and select articles from charitywatch.org.
Charities FAQ
How do I apply to have my charity rated by CharityWatch?
How does CharityWatch decide which charities to rate?
How often does CharityWatch update a charity’s rating and other information?
How do I request an update of my organization's rating?
How do I view my organization's rating information online on CharityWatch's website?
My charity is not Top-Rated by CharityWatch. How can my charity achieve Top-Rated status?
How do I apply to have my charity rated by CharityWatch?
Charities cannot apply or pay to be rated by CharityWatch. We are an independent charity watchdog, not a charity listing service, trade association, or promotional platform. We select organizations for evaluation based on donor interest and our own watchdog priorities, independently of the charities we review.
This independence is an important part of our work. CharityWatch does not solicit charities to participate in our ratings, charge organizations to be evaluated or listed, or allow charities to purchase greater visibility or a favorable rating.
To learn more about how we select charities for evaluation, see our FAQ, “How does CharityWatch decide which organizations to evaluate and rate?”
How does CharityWatch decide which charities to rate?
The in-depth level of analysis required for our charity evaluations is time-intensive and does limit the number of groups we are able to review. We add between 15 to 20 charities per year to our list of rated charities. Currently, CharityWatch rates over 600 charities.
We generally focus on evaluating large charities that receive $1 million or more of public support annually, are of interest to donors nationally, and have been in existence for at least three years. As a charity watchdog organization, our charity selection process is donor-driven. We strive to cover many of the groups that CharityWatch members are most interested in. CharityWatch does not accept requests from charities that ask to be rated, nor do we charge charities to be listed in our publication or website, or for the right to publicize their ratings.
CharityWatch does not report on churches, synagogues, mosques, political action committees (PACs), fraternal clubs, colleges, or local institutions such as hospitals and museums. CharityWatch does report on the separate human and social welfare organizations of religious groups. The current list of organizations rated by CharityWatch can be found here.
How often does CharityWatch update a charity’s rating and other information?
General information about a charity is updated on charitywatch.org as we become aware of a change. This includes changes to a charity's name, address, website, phone number, or names a charity uses to solicit potential donors. Rating, governance, and salary information for a charity is generally analyzed and updated by CharityWatch every other fiscal year. Charity tax forms and audited financial statements are not available to the public or for CharityWatch to review immediately upon the end of a charity's fiscal year. CharityWatch obtains these documents directly from charities and government sources on a continuous basis as they become available. An analyst then performs a preliminary assessment to determine if a charity's rating will change significantly based on its newer financial reporting, then prioritizes it for update. Charities whose letter grade ratings are prone to significant fluctuations, charities with a history of governance issues, and charities with high assets, are typically updated every fiscal year, rather than every other fiscal year.
How do I request an update of my organization's rating?
CharityWatch (CW) typically updates a charity's rating every other fiscal year. We make exceptions and update ratings more frequently when we are aware that an update will result in a significant grade change. Updates of ratings that will not change significantly are typically de-prioritized and deferred to the following fiscal year.
Please review Our Process for information about factors that impact CW's ratings. If you are a Controller, CFO, or other charity official who believes CharityWatch's rating of your organization will change significantly based on our evaluation of more current financial information, please contact us to request an update. Due to the expertise and extensive time required to thoroughly respond, CW will only respond to detailed inquiries submitted by an official within the accounting or finance department with expertise in the financial reporting of your organization.
Requests should be e-mailed to [email protected] with “Rating Update Request” in the subject line to help us direct your inquiry to the appropriate staff member. Requests should include a brief explanation as to where improvements in spending efficiency have been made relative to the fiscal year currently rated by Charitywatch. Visit Financial Documents in the Ratings & Metrics section for your charity to view the documents CW uses to rate your organization, and send a complete copy of all of these documents with your rating update request.
When we receive your written request, one of our analysts will perform a preliminary assessment to determine whether or not your organization's grade will actually change significantly. If yes, most often we will then complete a full analysis and prioritize your organization's rating accordingly. Due to the time-intensive nature related to processing rating update requests, please allow several weeks for a response.
How do I view my organization's rating information online on CharityWatch's website?
If your charity is Top-Rated by CharityWatch, its rating information is typically viewable on our website without logging-in. If your charity is not Top-Rated, you typically must be logged in to view your charity's rating information. We do not charge a charity for information about its rating. If you would like information about only your organization's current letter grade rating, please use our Contact page to email your request and we will respond via email. If you instead would like access to your organization's rating information online, along with all of the charity ratings and other information on CharityWatch's site, you may become a Supporter. Charities receive the same account status as any other donor who becomes a Supporter of CharityWatch.
How do I understand how CharityWatch calculated my organization's letter grade rating? Why are CharityWatch's calculations different from those of my organization?
CharityWatch's ratings are based on a thorough analysis of a charity's tax forms, audited financial statements, and annual reports. Certain adjustments may be made to reported figures in the process of CharityWatch's in-depth evaluation of an organization's financial activities. For more information, please refer to the Our Process section of our website.
If after reading CharityWatch's rating criteria your organization has more detailed questions as to how your group's current rating was calculated, you may forward a written inquiry from a manager within your organization's accounting or finance department that details your specific questions to [email protected], or via U.S. Mail to:
CharityWatch
Attn: Analyst
PO Box 578460
Chicago, IL 60657
Due to the expertise and extensive time required to thoroughly respond, CW will only respond to detailed inquiries submitted by an official within the accounting or finance department with expertise in the financial reporting of your organization. This requirement also prevents multiple inquiries from different individuals within the same charity. We regret that we cannot respond to inquiries from all individuals/departments.
My charity publishes more than one set of audited financial statements. How do I know which audit must be posted on my charity's website to meet CharityWatch's Audit Accessibility benchmark?
CharityWatch analyzes a charity’s audited financial statements during our evaluations. By requiring charities to post a complete copy of their audited financial statements on their public websites as a condition of meeting our transparency benchmarks, CharityWatch hopes to encourage more charities to make their audits publicly available. To view the documents CharityWatch analyzes to compute your charity’s rating, navigate to Financial Documents in your charity’s Ratings & Metrics section on charitywatch.org. A charity that posts on its website the audit document listed in this section will meet CharityWatch’s Audit Accessibility benchmark. If your charity is not currently Top-Rated, you may need to be logged into the site to view complete information. See the FAQ “How do I view my organization’s rating information online?” for more information.
Many of the nonprofits rated by CharityWatch are single-entity organizations that publish one audit and one tax form. However, other organizations are more complex and publish combined or consolidated audited financial statements that may include a national office, local affiliates, and/or several related organizations. Whenever practicable, CharityWatch obtains consolidated/combined audited financial statements that include all of a charity's entities. Such an audit eliminates related party transactions among related groups, and allows us to determine how efficiently an organization is operating on the whole. CharityWatch issues separate ratings for 501(c)4 organizations, even when such groups are included in a charity's consolidated/combined audit, due to the different tax treatment of these groups. See our sections on Treatment of Related Organizations and the Governance & Transparency sections of the Our Process page for more information.
If after reviewing this information your organization still has questions about meeting the Audit Accessibility benchmark, please contact us at [email protected].
My charity is not Top-Rated by CharityWatch. How can my charity achieve Top-Rated status?
Top-Rated Status: Indicates whether or not a charity is Top-Rated by CharityWatch. See the Top-Rated page for a list of highly efficient charities and for an overview the benchmarks a charity must meet to receive Top-Rated status. Specific criteria include:
a. A charity must earn a grade of B+ or higher, as calculated by CharityWatch, for the financial year rated. See the section on How Grades are Calculated for more specific information.
b. A charity must not hold excessive assets in reserve. See the section on Treatment of High Assets and CharityWatch’s list of High Asset Charities for more specific information.
c. A charity must meet CharityWatch’s Transparency benchmarks. A charity must post a complete copy of its most current, independent audited financial statements on its public website. It must also provide complete copies of its IRS tax form(s) 990 to CharityWatch upon request, and may be required to answer questions related to its financial reporting and/or provide additional documentation if such information is necessary for CharityWatch to complete a meaningful evaluation. See the Transparency Benchmark section of the Our Process page for more specific information.
d. A charity must meet CharityWatch’s Governance benchmarks. CharityWatch reviews a charity's tax form to see if it reports having certain policies in place, a sufficiently large and independent governing body, and other basic governance information that serve as standard benchmarks for large charities of national scope or interest. To be eligible for Top-Rated status, charities must pass all nine benchmarks, and, in addition, CharityWatch must not be aware of any serious governance issues at the charity that would cause it to fail our overall standards for good governance. See the Governance Benchmarks section of the Our Process page for more specific information.
My charity is Top-Rated by CharityWatch. How do I obtain a copy of the Top-Rated Seal to use in my charity's promotional materials and website? Does CharityWatch charge charities to use its Seal?
CharityWatch believes it is a conflict of interest to charge a charity it reviews to promote its rating. Charities that qualify to use the Seal may do so free of charge. Please visit our Top-Rated page to see if your charity is Top-Rated. If so, you may use the Top-Rated Seal to promote your organization's rating subject to the Top-Rated Seal Terms of Use.
Email [email protected] to request access to Top-Rated Seal image files and instructions for download.
To update the contact information of the person your organization has designated to receive CharityWatch Top-Rated Seal information, email [email protected] with "CharityWatch Seal—Contact Information Update" in the subject line for a faster response. Be sure to include the contact's first and last name, job title, direct phone number, and email address in your message, along with the name of your organization.