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Intelligent Giving to launch 'Which-style guide' to charities 2

Fundraising | Lucy Harvey | 27 May 2009

Charity rating website Intelligent Giving is teaming up with two other organisations in an attempt to create a definitive guide on which non-profits spend money most effectively.

The controversial site already rates charities in terms of efficiency by assessing annual reports.

Now director Adam Rothwell (pictured) is working with Charity Navigator in the US and analysis firm Keystone Accountability in the UK in an attempt to establish a more comprehensive rating system by talking to beneficiaries and experts.

Rothwell said: “We are working on a big project to overhaul how we rate charities. We want to be a Which? guide to charities on the internet and tell people which charities are the best.

“At the moment we say which ones are transparent but we want to do something game-changing for charities and for donors we want to give an idea of how effective the organisation is.

“The three of us want to get to this place where people can come to us and we can say ‘this is where your money will be most effectively spent’.

"No one knows how to measure charities effectiveness. That’s what people really want.”

For each charity that is scrutinized, the team plan to speak to beneficiaries as well as experts in an attempt to gather a full picture. For example, to assess a cancer charity researchers would speak to sufferers and leading doctors.

“We are very interested in looking at how industry does this and how customer satisfaction works in for-profit organisations," Rothwell said.

“We have been taking to Charity Navigator since Christmas and we are now doing a lot of hard work talking to funders about this. We think it is a project which is quite fundable.

“This is such a big project. It is really important and will have a big impact on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Rothwell estimates it will take at least three years before the first results come through and says those charities deemed to be spending money effectively would be awarded a quality mark.

He has not decided what to do with any organisations deemed not to be efficient.

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