rating overview
in order to fulfill our mission of bringing guidance and efficiency to the philanthropic world, giveback employs a holistic rating process when scoring each nonprofit listed on our platform.
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our goal is to bring a venture capital mindset to the philanthropic world by scoring nonprofits across four main categories:
giveback hopes to shift the paradigm of “giving” from simply a donation to an investment - where donors can select where to donate based on evaluating the performance metrics most important to them and the impact on the beneficiaries their giving will have.
initial criteria
giveback is initially focused on rating organizations that meet the following criteria:
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1. IRS tax status: giveback rates organizations who have been approved by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a tax-exempt, charitable organizations “501(c)(3)”.
the IRS defines “charitable” as including relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erection or maintenance of public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.
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2. revenue: giveback rates organizations who have at least $1 million in annual revenue.
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3. length of existence: giveback rates organizations who have had a 501(c)(3) status for at least three years.
however, giveback does make exceptions for nonprofits who fit certain “newer” niche themes. our selection criteria directly correlates to our goal of bringing a venture capital mindset to the philanthropic world. it is unfair to score newer nonprofits against certain benchmarks and compare it to more established organizations within the same industry.
scoring calculation
giveback assesses the following number of metrics for each performance category:
1. accountability & transparency - 21 metrics
2. financial health - 8 metrics
3. impact & results - 3 metrics
4. leadership - 8 metrics
5. main criteria - 3 metrics
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in addition, giveback also scores whether or not the nonprofit meets the initial criteria to appear on the platform, which consists of 3 metrics.
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individually, each category sums up to 100 points and can be evaluated separately. together, the five category totals are averaged together to produce a final score.
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once our review is complete, giveback assigns a final score for each organization and a "rated organization" badge on their nonprofit profile page on the platform, so donors can easily compare between different organizations.
deep dive registration
we invite organizations we have rated that meet a certain minimum score to participate in giveback’s full deep dive registration process to share extra information about the effectiveness of their work and programs.
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1. registration
through the registration form, the nonprofit can share more information about their leadership, impact, and finances that are not typically publicly available. giveback reviews this information and shares certain metrics that we believe will help donors when evaluating each organization.
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2. recap
the final step is a recap with the organization's leadership to go over the findings of the review and their score.
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for those organizations who complete the deep dive registration and review process, we upgrade the "rated organization" badge to a giveback “certified organization” badge and include a deep dive section with the information shared directly by the organization on their nonprofit profile page.
SDGs and themes
our ultimate goal with our rating process is to provide donors with the information they need to make better-informed decisions about which charities to support based on their giving preferences. all the information about the nonprofit will be shown on the platform, where each organization has its own public profile and users can understand more about its work and impact. you can see some examples here.
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we are rating more organizations to add to the platform, targeting organizations that meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and themes that map to donors’ preferences for donation.
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