Is Charity Navigator the National Enquirer of nonprofit watchdog groups?
Michael Soper, a nonprofit consultant, charges that Charity Navigator,
Mahwah, N.J., is similar to the infamous tabloid because its uses
flawed reporting to make sensationalistic reports, such as “10 charities routinely in the red.”
“In my view, Charity Navigator, its ratings, and its top ten lists are
nothing more than great merchandising of a weak underlying product,” Mr. Soper writes on Tactical
Philanthropy.
Specifically, Mr. Soper writes that the watchdog’s methods are flawed because:
- It only examines the financial health of a charity, not how effective it is at meeting its mission.
- It relies too heavily on the Internal Revenue Service’s 990 informational tax return, which charities often interpret differently.
- Its ratings could be skewed depending on a charity’s mission or the year Charity Navigator began examining a group. For example, Mr. Soper writes that if Charity Navigator were to begin looking at a nonprofit group at a time it is in capital campaign, “Future ratings and rankings could show the nonprofit in decline as a result of the decreasing revenue.”
Mr. Soper writes that he appreciates Charity Navigator’s mission —
and that it isn’t always wrong about the charities it ranks — but
that a more accurate and effective evaluation process is needed.
“I’m not suggesting that every poor rating of a nonprofit by Charity Navigator is incorrect or undeserved. I am urging the nonprofit industry to create better measures and/or methods of evaluating nonprofits’ mission-driven services in terms of effectiveness and efficiency,” he writes.
Mr. Soper’s criticism was part of The One-Post
Challenge.
It is based on his original post on the blog Rare Medium.
What do you think? Are Charity Navigator’s rankings flawed? How can the nonprofit world create a better evaluation system? Click on the comments link below this post to share your thoughts.
