Charity Navigator was founded in 2001. Explore our history in the interactive timeline (scroll to the bottom of our About Us page): https://www.charitynavigator.org/about-us/

Charity Navigator helps millions of people take action and support the causes they care about by connecting them to the best charities that align with their passions and values. We help charitable givers make intelligent giving decisions by providing information on over 200k charities and by evaluating various aspects of their operations. We ensure our evaluations are widely used by making them easy to understand and freely available to the public. Our mission is to make impactful giving easier for all.

No. Charity Navigator is not affiliated with any other charity in the world, so you can trust that our information is 100% objective.

A nonprofit ourselves, Charity Navigator was originally funded by the New York philanthropists, John and Marion Dugan, who believed that an unbiased charity evaluator needed to be created to help benevolent citizens make informed giving decisions. Since that 2001 funding, Charity Navigator has actively sought contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals who think that we provide a valuable service to the American public. Click here to find out more about supporting us.

Again, Charity Navigator does not charge our users to access our rating information, nor do we charge the charities to be evaluated, ensuring that you can trust the data we deliver.

The Charity Navigator staff consists of people from a variety of professional disciplines who have come together in the belief that the philanthropic marketplace will benefit from a new level of unbiased financial analysis. Our team members are drawn not only from the non-profit management field, but also from positions within the for-profit sector.

Additional information about Charity Navigator's Board can be obtained by reviewing the Leadership portion of this website.

If you are an individual donor, the best way you can support Charity Navigator is to not only use our service to find a charity you wish to support, but to tell your friends and colleagues about us.

If you represent a foundation or a corporation, the best way you can support our work is to not only tell a friend about us, but to contact us to discuss ways we can develop partnerships so we can maximize all our efforts to ensure charitable giving not only survives, but thrives.

Information about supporting Charity Navigator is available in the Support Us section of this website.

We are always looking for smart, talented, energetic people who believe in reforming the philanthropic marketplace in order to promote increased and responsible philanthropy. If you are interested, please check our job posting page.

Charity Navigator is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the EIN# 13-4148824.