Charity Starts At Home And Doesn't Cost A Penny.....

....make donations to your favorite but look around your neighborhood. Rake leaves, shovel the snow, go shopping, etc. for a senior; offer to babysit for that single mom so she has some personal time, take her kid with you to a movie or sporting event or a day at the beach or skating, etc.; give the hockey/soccer mom a break; etc. etc.

Holding charities to business standards

November 25, 2009

Carol Goar

Just in time for Christmas giving, Charity Intelligence Canada, which compiles an annual list of non-profit organizations that offer donors "the biggest bang for their buck," has released its 2009 recommendations.

Twelve Toronto charities made the cut. Most are well-known, deliver quantifiable services and have influential corporate or institutional backers.

Here are the winners:

Second Harvest.

Fort York Food Bank.

Evangel Hall Mission.

Salvation Army Gateway.

Red Door Family Shelter.

Barbra Schlifer Clinic.

Pathways to Education.

Junior Achievement of Central Ontario.

East York Learning Centre.

Gateway Linens.

Eva's Print Shop.

TurnAround Couriers.

These charities do excellent work. They deserve recognition.

But so do many small, grassroots voluntary organizations that will never win a Charity Intelligence seal of approval. They change lives in ways that can't easily be measured. They know their clients personally and take the time to listen to them. They don't aspire to be big, businesslike or competitive.

Who can place a value on a warm welcome, a human connection, an encouraging smile? Who can measure a charity's role in pulling a community together? Who can build a cost-benefit matrix that recognizes the sense of belonging volunteers feel?

Charity Intelligence was founded three years ago by Kate Bahen, an equity analyst who had worked for some of the country's biggest investment firms. She was frustrated by the lack of financial transparency in the non-profit sector. She didn't want to give blindly and she didn't think other Canadians should have to.

So she created a non-profit agency to differentiate between mere "do gooders" and well-managed "good doers." To get into the second group, a charity has to be efficient, effective and prove that it is meeting a real need.

To begin their evaluation process, Bahen and her team identify roughly 400 charities (out of 82,000) for consideration. They ask for audited financial statements. They check their records with Canada Revenue. And they scrutinize their costs, especially the amount they spend on administration and fundraising.

Next they go through a program evaluation, comparing a charity's mission with its results. They examine the scope of its service and its benefits to society. And they check its costs and productivity against those of other charities doing similar work.

Finally, Bahen brings in five volunteers with high-level financial and philanthropic experience to pick the top performers.

This year, the organization considered 435 charities, did an in-depth analysis of 97 and recommended 32.

Charity Intelligence hopes to persuade Canadians to switch from traditional giving, which relies on "emotional pitches from friends and social acquaintances," to impact giving, which relies on "rational analysis."

This approach is controversial, Bahen admits. It is based on methods developed by the conservative Fraser Institute and applied by the Donner Foundation, which puts applicants through a rigorous screening process to determine the nine best run non-profit agencies in the country each year. They receive a collective $60,000.

Many in the voluntary sector question the fairness of treating charities like businesses. To Bahen, it's not a question of fairness. "It's money. It's capital," she says. "We think you should think about it as you would an investment."

To those who normally "write cheques to unknown charities," as the report puts it, Charity Intelligence offers a better alternative.

But to those who have been touched by a charity, know its staff and volunteers, see the good work it does in their community and believe in its cause, there is nothing wrong with traditional giving.

Some charities deliver services efficiently. Others mobilize citizens, strengthen communities, combat indifference and solve problems in ways that defy market analysis.

Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.