What’s the difference between this list of top-rated charities and a list like Charity Navigator’s?

• Charity Navigator assesses the cost-effectiveness for some charities on its site through its Impact & Measurement beacon. However, there are several things to keep in mind:
• A charity can receive a perfect score (100, 4-star) without any impact data on file. (Example here)
• A charity can be rated “highly cost-effective” even if its programme is significantly less cost-effective than other programmes. For example, the charity Navy Seal, which grants scholarships to military personnel in high-income countries, and the Against Malaria Foundation, which provides bed nets to protect people from malaria in low-income countries, were both granted a perfect score of 100 and deemed “highly cost-effective” by Charity Navigator even though the good done per dollar is dramatically different.
  • In the Navy Seal case, $2,670 increases income for a scholarship recipient by $3,892 (based on Charity Navigator’s analysis). In the Against Malaria Foundation case, $2670 would provide 534 bednets, which would protect over 1000 people from malaria, a disease that currently kills around 600,000 people per year (based on GiveWell’s analysis).
  • Charity Navigator’s metric for Navy Seal: Impact scores of postsecondary scholarship programs are based on income generated relative to cost. Programs receive an Impact score of 100 if they increase income for a recipient by more than $1.25 for every $1 spent and a score of 80 if income increases by more than $0.80 for every $1 spent. This would not be considered highly cost-effective by our research team, since there are many programs in need of funding where each donated dollar achieves much more than the roughly 25-cent gain implied by this benchmark. Learn more about comparing charities.
• A charity’s impact is not heavily weighted. A charity can receive a perfect score even without any information on its impact. When data exists for all four of Charity Navigator’s metrics (“beacons”), the Impact & Measurement beacon is only weighted at 39% of the total score.

These differences reflect a broader methodological distinction. Charity Navigator groups charities into program types and sets a cost-effectiveness benchmark for each type. This approach doesn’t account for the vast variation in impact that arises from which problems and programs you choose to support. As a result, hundreds of charities with dramatically different levels of cost-effectiveness can all receive “top” ratings.

Impact-focused evaluators (like the ones our research team reviews and vets) use cause-area and program-level prioritisation to narrow down the millions of charities that exist in order to find those likely to do the most good per dollar donated. This allows donors to direct their giving to where the evidence suggests it will go the furthest.