Login with FacebookFirst Ever List of Top-Rated Food and Shelter Nonprofits
Menlo Park, Calif. — December 23, 2009 — GreatNonprofits announced today a list of Top-Rated Food and Shelter nonprofits (www.greatnonprofits.org/foodandshelter/) to aid individuals in year-end charity giving and volunteering. The ratings were posted during the 2009 Food and Shelter Awards, hosted by GreatNonprofits, Care2, Feeding America, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, the National Coalition for the Homeless, and GuidesSar. Ratings were submitted by members of the public who have volunteered, donated, or been served by the nonprofits. There are over 60 top nonprofits on the final list, available at www.greatnonprofits.org/foodandshelter/.
Steven M. Waldmann, the Executive Director of Society of St. Andrew in Big Island, VA., one of the top-rated charities, says, “We deeply appreciate the efforts of GreatNonprofits in offering the opportunity for our supporters to express their views of this ministry and to bring attention to the many wonderful works that are being done on behalf of those in need.”
“Community involvement, support and understanding of what our agency does is crucial to our continuing ability to follow our mission,” says Sandra Lewis, the Executive Director of Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless in Tulsa, OK, another top-rated nonprofit.
“My Sister's House is honored to be on the GreatNonprofits Top-Rated Food and Shelter Charities list,” said Nilda Valmores, Executive Director of My Sister’s House in Sacramento, CA. “This recognition could help increase the generosity of individual donors, foundations, and public officials to support My Sister's House efforts.”
This is the first ever list presenting reviews of food and shelter nonprofits provided by those who have actually experienced their work. The campaign, held during November and December, asked people to submit reviews and ratings about nonprofits providing food or shelter to those in need. The results show the incredible impact being made by nonprofits addressing the critical issues of hunger and homelessness. These unique results will be helpful to donors and supporters who are looking to get involved.
“There are so many great nonprofits serving those in need that don’t have an advertising budget and are not household names,” says Perla Ni, CEO and founder of GreatNonprofits. “Through this first-ever list of top-rated Food and Shelter nonprofits, you can see how some of these nonprofits are changing lives. Donors and volunteers who are interested in getting involved now see which nonprofits are really making a difference."
The entire list of top-rated nonprofits is at www.greatnonprofits.org/foodandshelter/_. Use this list to find great nonprofits to support for your year-end giving and volunteering.
About the 2009 Food and Shelter Awards The awards were hosted by GreatNonprofits, the leading provider of user-generated ratings and reviews of nonprofits, Care2, Feeding America, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, the National Coalition for the Homeless, and GuideStar. Over the course of the Food and Shelter Awards, more than 67,000 people visited the GreatNonprofits Web site, and over 1700 reviews were posted about more than 230 nonprofits providing food or shelter to those in need.
Reviews appear on GreatNonprofits.org as well as GuideStar.org, the premiere source for donor research on nonprofits. Nonprofits with 10 or more positive reviews are included on the GreatNonprofits Top-Rated Food and Shelter Nonprofits list. Reviews submissions took place from November 10th to December 22nd, 2009.
Media Contact: Shari Ilsen 650.234.4766 (office) 978.621.3396 (cell)
GreatNonprofits Top Charity Lists Go Live!
MEDIA ALERT – December 1, 2009
First “Zagat-like Ratings” Website Goes Live with New Top Charity Lists
WHAT: GreatNonprofits releases the first-ever “Top charities” lists based on user ratings and reviews. Twenty lists created according to causes and cities, rate nonprofits including youth service, food and shelter, cancer, environmental, and LGBT organizations, and nonprofits in metro areas including San Diego, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York.
WHEN: December 1, 2009, 12:01 a.m.
WHY: This holiday season, with needs up and donations down, it’s more vital than ever that consumers make wise choices about which charities to support, either financially or through volunteer service. Experts, including Hewlett Foundation president Paul Brest, say “overhead ratios” -— determined by how much money goes into programs as compared to administrative costs — are useless for evaluating which charities do the best work [see explananation, next page]. But that and similar criteria are precisely what most other ratings systems employ in judging nonprofit performance. Now there is an alternative. Several new organizations, including GreatNonprofits, have formed to provide donors useful — and free — information to help them choose charities that are the best at what they do.
WHO: Perla Ni, founding editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, founded GreatNonprofits after providing editorial coverage of Hurricane Katrina and trying to determine the best nonprofits serving New Orleans residents. Ni was recently named one of the “Top Game Changers in Philanthropy” by the Huffington Post, and has been featured in the Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, Chronicle of Philanthropy, and dozens of other media for her innovative rating service, referred to as “Zagat-”, “Yelp-”, or “TripAdvisor-like” reviews for nonprofits.
WHERE: GreatNonprofits, called “a destination site for the philanthropic,”can be accessed from any computer anywhere on the planet. Volunteers, board members, service recipients, or anyone who has had experience with a nonprofit can post a review, positive or negative, enabling nonprofits to improve their services and showcase their strengths, and encouraging more donations and volunteer support.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Perla Ni; perlani@greatnonprofits.org; 415.902.2659, visit http://www.GreatNonprofits.org, or see http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1125/p25s08-usec.html or http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/BAEP14OGI4.DTL&hw=greatnonprofits&sn=001&sc=1000
Why “overhead ratios” may be the worst criteria by which to judge nonprofits While the idea of sending money “straight to the beneficiaries” is tempting, nonprofit experts agree that judging charities by how much of their money goes to "programs" is counterproductive. "Achieving a low overhead ratio drives charities to all sorts of behaviors that make them less effective and means more, not less, wasted dollars," says Paul Brest, President of the Hewlett Foundation.
Experts cite many reasons that an overhead ratio is a useless measure:
• It tells you nothing about the impact the charity has on people it's trying to help
• It discourages charities from investing in tools and expertise that would make them more effective
• The rules for determining overhead costs are vague and every charity interprets them differently
• Accounting experts estimate that 75% of charities calculate their overhead ratio incorrectly
Top Nonprofits by City:
Boston - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/628
Chicago - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/663
Los Angeles - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/600
Minneapolis - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/631
New York - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/606
Oakland - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/623
Philadelphia - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/629
Pittsburgh - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/666
San Diego - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/610
San Francisco - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/642
San Jose - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/655
Seattle - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/618
Washington DC - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/_/609
Top Nonprofits by Cause:
Top-Rated Cancer Fighting Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/cancer/_
Top-Rated Environmental Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/green/_
Top-Rated Indian Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/indya/_
Top-Rated Jewish Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/jewish/_
Top-Rated LGBTQ Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/pride/_
Top-Rated Youth Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/yth/_
Top-Rated Food and Shelter Nonprofits - http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/issues/foodandshelter/_
2 Jobs Available - Online Marketing Guru and Senior Web Engineer/Engineering Manager
GreatNonprofits is seeking an online marketing guru and a Sr. web engineer/engineering manager. Both jobs are available ONLY to San Francisco residents who qualify for the San Francisco Stimulus Job Program. To qualify, you must be:
- a SF resident
- Have a child under 18 (the child does not have to live with you)
- Be unemployed currently OR low income
Location: Conveniently located off 280 on Sandhill road in Menlo Park.
Online Marketing Guru
This is a unique opportunity to play a key role with a leading organization at the intersection of technology and nonprofits. This is a chance to have a huge impact on a highly visible organization, and shape its direction.
Help spearhead GreatNonprofits' (http://www.greatnonprofits.org) online marketing campaigns and engagewith a variety of nonprofits. You'll be developing and executing online marketing campaigns through Twitter, Facebook, Google Adwords and more.
Each month, we launch a new campaign focused on a social sector. This past year, we've launched campaigns focused on Environmental nonprofits, LGBTQ nonprofits, Youth nonprofits, Indian nonprofits, and Jewish nonprofits. We plan on launching campaigns around Human Rights nonprofits, Homeless nonprofits, Women's nonprofits as well.
Responsibilities:
- Developing and executing online marketing campaigns through Twitter, Facebook, Google Adwords and more.
- Monitoring and tracking success of campaigns
- Writing email newsletters, website copy, be responsible for Twitter, Facebook outreach
- Creating online ads for Adwords and tracking Adwords
- Email acquisition - Developing email list, targeting, mail merge and deduping
Benefits:
- Work in small “start-up” at the cutting edge of nonprofits and technology
- Transform the way nonprofits are evaluated
Experience Required:
- 5 years experience in online marketing – writing email newsletters, creating ads for Adwords, setting up and tracking google analytics, and blogging.
- Excellent references, successful track-record
- Nice to have – background in publishing
- Some familiarity with nonprofits
- Bachelor's degree
Compensation: Negotiable
You must meet the requirements of the San Francisco Jobs Now Program:
http://www.sfhsa.org/1283.htm
Please send resume to Perlani(at)greatnonprofits.org
Senior Software Engineer/Engineering Manager
We’re seeking a star PHP/MySQL programmer to lead engineering and to develop APIs and co-brands with partner sites.
The Opportunity:
This is a unique opportunity to play a key role with a leading organization at the intersection of technology and nonprofits. This is a chance to have a huge impact on a highly visible organization, and shape its direction.
The success of GreatNonprofits (http://www.greatnonprofits.org) will be directly tied to the capabilities of our engineering team, and its leadership. You will interact closely across departments, from product management to business development.
The Ideal Candidate:
- Experienced technical self-starter, with experience out of a fast-growing startup, or out of a significant web-based company
- Track record of promotions and achievement
- Hands on problem solver
- Experience working with highly scalable systems.
Technical Chops:
- Deep proven experience in PHP, MySQL, Javascript/Ajax, and CSS/XHTML
- Developed robust web applications, APIs, standalone scripts, and lightweight web applications.
- Experience leading engineering team
- Experience with Drupal
Compensation: Negotiable
You must meet the requirements of the San Francisco Jobs Now Program:
http://www.sfhsa.org/1283.htm
Please send resume to Perlani(at)greatnonprofits.org
About GreatNonprofits:
GreatNonprofits is a website and tool that allows you to find, review, and talk about great -- and perhaps not yet great -- nonprofits. Reviews can be seen on our own website, and are also syndicated to other sites, such as our premiere partner, GuideStar . The reviews on GuideStar are linked from the search results as well as from the individual nonprofit profile pages. You can also write reviews on GuideStar and they will be visible on GreatNonprofits as well as GuideStar.
GreatNonprofits is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization itself, which is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Sand Hill Foundation, Morgan Family Foundation, Peery Foundation, and individuals who believe that we provide a needed information source for nonprofits, volunteers and donors.
Launched in Nov. 2007, GreatNonprofits has already received media coverage in Newsweek, Chronicle of Philanthropy, San Francisco Business Times, on NPR, and more.
GreatNonprofits CEO Perla Ni Shares Her Ideas on Holiday Giving With USA Today
Today’s entry for the USA Today Kindness Blog is written by none other than our founder and CEO, Perla Ni. Perla’s post adds to an already strong and interesting collection of posts about new ways to give and volunteer, especially in the holiday season. The Kindness blog aims to help readers find inspiration in the news and guide them towards new and dynamic ways to make a difference and GreatNonprofits is proud and grateful to be featured.
Perla writes candidly about how important she knows charities can be to individuals and families. This holiday season, Perla is making a difference by contributing to a cause in the name of friends and family. Using the reviews on GreatNonprofits, she has chosen several charities that have been identified as exceptional by beneficiaries, volunteers and donors. Read more of Perla’s post and check out some of the charities she’s choosing to support on the USA Today Kindness blog.
Top 5 Tips for Choosing a Charity
1. Don't look at overhead ratios: Overhead ratios are the worst way to pick a charity. They tell you nothing about the impact that the charity has and actually encourage charities to make decisions that make them less effective. In short, choosing a charity based on overhead ratio means more wasted money, not less.
2. Look for opinions and information about the charity from the people who have had direct experience with it: GreatNonprofits.org allows beneficiaries, clients, donors and others to post both positive and negative reviews. The reviews are also automatically posted to the nonprofits' GuideStar report.
3. Look for expert opinions on the charity: Philanthropedia is a new site that is providing access to the knowledge of experts that would normally only be available to large foundations.
4. Look for direct evidence of impact: This is more than just a few nice stories and pretty pictures. Ask the charity how it is evaluating the effectiveness of its programs. GiveWell has reviewed hundreds of charities looking for direct evidence of impact. Their site provides a great deal of information on what we know works and what we know doesn't--and surprisingly many charities are carrying out programs that have little or no evidence that they work.
5. See It For Yourself: Do a donor tour or sign up to volunteer and experience for yourself what the nonprofit does.
The Worst (and Best) Way to Pick a Charity
Increasingly in the nonprofit world we are starting to see new, more nuanced perspectives on how to determine which organizations are the most effective. In an exciting new development, GreatNonprofits has joined with Philanthropy Action, GiveWell, Philanthropedia, Charity Navigator, GuideStar, and the Hewlett Foundation to emphasize the importance of seeing past one-sided approaches that focus exclusively on overhead ratios.
In fact, picking a charity based on overhead ratio is like choosing a school without looking at the quality of education it provides to its students. This means that an overhead ratio tells you next to nothing about the impact the charity has on the people it’s trying to help. Instead, as Paul Brest, president of the Hewlett Foundation explains, “Achieving a low overhead ratio drives many charities to behaviors that make them less effective and means more, not less, wasted dollars.” Overwhelming focus on overhead ratio actually alters nonprofit behavior and discourages charities from investing in tools and expertise that would make them more effective. Furthermore, the rules for determining overhead costs are vague and every charity interprets them differently, leading experts to estimate that close to 75% of charities calculate incorrectly.
This coalition of prominent nonprofit leaders seeks to highlight the various ways that overhead ratios fail to demonstrate impact. Bob Ottenhoff of Charity Navigator acknowledges that “It's understandable why people have looked at overhead ratios and executive salaries—they want to make sure their donation does the most good.” That being said, “The best way to do that isn't a financial ratio, it's information on how effective charities are.”
This giving season, as GreatNonprofits Founder and CEO Perla Ni says, "So many donors and volunteers want to know if their giving is going to make a difference. Now there are new tools for them to see which nonprofits are most deserving of their support,” User-generated reviews, expert opinions, and thorough examinations of nonprofits are a powerful tool for donors looking to make sure their dollar goes as far as possible. By making use of these new tools, we can change the way people evaluate nonprofits and direct resources to the organizations that are most effective.
To read the press release, and for more information on how to make an informed giving decision visit http://bit.ly/6kjV9d
This blog post was written by Emma Bundy, GreatNonprofits Marketing Manager
