'Tis the season of giving, and some look to give to charities, or donate in the name of a loved one.  You don't have to worry about it being returned, and you can take pride in helping others, and it helps better the world.

But not all charities are created equal; some have very high overhead, so when considering donating in someone's name, consider not only the appropriateness of the charity, but the effectiveness of the organization.

Charity Navigator can help you determine the fiscal efficiency of over 5,000 charities, as well as their Donor Privacy  Policy, which is a big concern for me.  Charities make money by selling or renting their contact lists; make one donation that isn't anonymous, and you'll find your mailbox overflows with requests for donations. I am not a fan of that on many levels.

The site is very thorough in analyzing how efficiently they operate, with graphs and numbers.  You can not only see a trend in their spending, but the rate of return on the fundraising efforts (the lower the number, the better).  The contact information is there, as well as a donate button.

Charity Navigator also has a series of Top Ten lists which are very enlightening:

• 10 Super-Sized Charities
• 10 Slam-Dunk Charities
• 10 Celebrity-Related Charities
• 10 Charities Drowning in Administrative Costs
• 10 of the Best Charities Everyone's Heard Of
• 10 Charities Worth Watching
• 10 Inefficient Fundraisers
• 10 Charities Expanding in a Hurry

The downside is, these feature primarily the bigger charities; smaller, local ones may not be listed, but they are working on it.  Those charities that don't file (some are exempt) aren't rated; these are usually faith-based, but that doesn't mean all are not there; check if you're considering a faith based charity.  It also doesn't have a very smart search engine, so if you can't find a charity, try alternate ways of spelling.

I did some searches on some local charities; Austin's Capital Area Food Bank is on it, but Caritas and Shadow Cats are not.  CAFB is a 'four star' charity, the highest ranking.  It only spends 1.4% on administration, although spends slightly higher (1.7%) on fund raising.  That being said, they only spend one cent on every dollar they bring in. Compare that to the American Red Cross which spends 21 cents per dollar on fund raising (and only has two stars). The site has lots of information to help see how they determine ranking, if you're curious.  

 
While it's not mentioned on Charity Navigator, and I don't know how efficient they are fiscally, Shadow Cats is getting money from me this year. As Shadow Cats is a cat rescue group, which means injured, abused, neglected, and abandoned cats they rescue can get more medical care.  They manage several feral cat colonies, and even helped Round Rock, TX make trap-neuter-release legal. 

This holiday season, the Central Texas Cat Hospital is matching donations with in-kind services, so it will have double impact.  If you're local, or a cat lover, you may work for a company that matches charitable donations, which could give it triple impact. 

My fundamental reason is completely selfish, though.  They rescued and fostered the kittens I adopted a year ago today.  So they're getting some of my hard earned wages this year.