HOW WE HELP NONPROFITS
To attract support, impactful nonprofits plan and measure their progress and communicate their results. Donors, and nonprofit constituents, deserve accountability. Track & Share helps nonprofits by giving them free tools and guidance to choose performance metrics and less tangible values, track them over time, and report them to stakeholders and the public they serve.
Track & Share principally works with nonprofits using the Candid platform, in consulting engagements of up to 20 hours. Candid's Seals of Transparency are often linked to transparency seals on other sites, such as Charity Navigator, and GreatNonprofits.
THE TRANSPARENCY RANKING SITES
Here is an alphabetical list of the main ranking sites, with links to more information about them:
“Introducing 2023 Candid Seals of Transparency”
Candid, formerly branded as GuideStar, aggregates information about the 2+ million nonprofits registered as 501(c)(3) organizations in the United States. In addition to publishing their Form 990 tax returns, it categorizes organizations into levels from bronze to platinum on the basis of the amount of information they self-report. Self-reported information on this site digs deeper and can give you a better understanding of the organizations mission and goals, as well as their strategies, metrics, capabilities and impact.
Provides data on more than 1.6 million nonprofits in the US. It rates more than 160,000 U.S.-based nonprofits. The ones it rates are big—those that have revenues over $1 million for 2 consecutive years and have been in existence for at least seven years.
CharityWatch is a nonprofit charity watchdog and information service. Founded by the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP), it provides detailed information about how efficiently a charity will use donations, while exposing nonprofit abuses as well. CharityWatch assigns letter grade ratings and provides other statistics on the financial performance of more than 600 American charities.
“Better Business Bureau Standards for Charity Accountability”
BBB Wise Giving Alliance (BBB’s Give.org) is a standards-based charity evaluator that seeks to verify the trustworthiness of publicly-soliciting charities by completing rigorous evaluations based on 20 BBB Standards for Charity Accountability.
GivingCompass bills itself as a one-stop shop to help individual donors learn about issues, get involved, and give to community-led change. It guides donors toward practices that advance equity and address the root causes of society's issues.
GreatNonprofits is a leading source for community-based stories about nonprofits. The stories are submitted by clients, donors, volunteers and others, people who have experienced the impact of the nonprofit’s work up close.
HOW AND WHAT TO TRACK
Using the Candid platform, you can select a variety of useful performance tracking metrics, and export them to your favorite spreadsheet platform to create a Data Dashboard.
Some other websites offer ways to track performance metrics. For example, CharityTracker offers this service for as little as $20 per month, is user friendly, and has personable customer service. Some alternatives are listed here.