Development Ratings

Ratings criteria

• We concentrate on organisations operating mainly in the neediest countries in the world. This way, donated funds are going where they are needed most.
• The charities we rate must be operationally and financially viable. By this, we mean that we would not rate a charity that is not financially healthy, as measured by a number of parameters, or one that is not operationally active.
• We are looking for charities making positive impact on their beneficiaries such that they clearly support the most vulnerable people in a significant, sustainable way.
• We rate organisations that are ideally doing something innovative, entrepreneurial or imaginative to uniquely address a critical issue. Several of our charities have concepts with much wider potential development applications.
• We rate charities that are run by impressive management teams or are supported to a major extent by volunteer, trustee or patron contributions. The dedication of people like this to their cause is infectious.
• We focus on charities for which a donor’s new funds would make a significant and useful contribution to the charity’s income, performance and development. This means that we usually do not rate larger charities that are already well-known and well-established.
• Similary, much smaller organisations may not have shown a strong track record of performance to date, or may be suffering from a lack of momentum or interest. Minor shocks could negatively impact less established operations.
• The charities we rate perform activities that fill a gap in the sector. The charities are not duplicating activities that are being performed by local or regional governments or by multi-lateral agencies – without our rated charities, the issue would be neglected in the area.