This document summarizes a Charity Navigator webinar on evaluating nonprofit impact and results. It discusses Charity Navigator's Impact & Results Beacon methodology, which measures how cost-effective a nonprofit's programs are at achieving outcomes. Nonprofits provide outcome and cost data through Charity Navigator's portal. If a program's impact per dollar is below a benchmark, it receives a higher score, indicating more cost-effective impact. The webinar also covers eligible program areas, tips for nonprofits to improve their Impact & Results rating, and a new Capacity for Measuring Impact assessment available to all nonprofits.

1. Charity Navigator
Masterclass
Session 4:
Impact & Results Beacon

2. Today’s Experts
Lea Prince
VP, Impact Ratings
Charity Navigator
Jeremy Ladyga
Nonprofit Board Consultant
OnBoard

3. Our mission: Make governance simple, effective, and secure
Helping nonprofits simplify governance
so they can focus on their mission and
accelerate their impact
● Making board meetings informed, seamless, and uncomplicated
● Transforming board collaboration and communication
● Innovating every day to empower modern boards
Helping today’s leaders create a better world
About OnBoard

4. Our mission: Make impactful giving easier for all
Helping people turn their values,
passions, and beliefs into meaningful
change and impact
● Providing the data, ratings, and advice that cut through the noise
● Supporting donors to make informed choices that turn intent into action
● Partnering with nonprofits to define strategic objectives that matter
Building a bridge of trust for all to cross
About Charity Navigator

5. Explore the ways Charity Navigator evaluates how nonprofits make
good use of resources to address the issues they aims to solve
Today’s Goals
Provide a deeper understanding of the Impact & Results Beacon’s
methodology and scoring criteria
Offer tips and best practices for effectively engaging with your
Impact & Results rating

6. A Quick Poll
Are you a board member or a nonprofit leader?
1. Board Member
2. Nonprofit Leader
3. Just interested

7. Our Ratings
Drawing from a knowledge base of research, analysis,
and constituent feedback, our team develops ratings that
are both analytical and responsive to the data needs of
our site users.
Eligible charities receive a zero to four-star star rating —
this is determined by the weighted sum of the
organization’s individual beacon scores (0-100).

8. Providing Guidance Through Beacons
Our Encompass Rating System provides a comprehensive
analysis of charity performance across four key domains, which
we call "beacons."
Nonprofit Effectiveness

9. Understanding A Charity Rating: What does it mean?
This is a four-star charity with
a 93% overall rating
They have earned two beacons:
- Accountability & Finance
(90%)
- Leadership &Adaptability
(10%)
These individual beacon scores
are combined* to create the
aggregate score.
Incomplete beacons are
“unscored”
This is a four-star charity
with a 100% overall rating
They have earned four beacons:
- Accountability & Finance
(32.5%)
- Leadership &Adaptability
(7.5%)
- Impact & Results (50%)
- Culture & Community
(10%)
These individual beacon scores
are combined* to create the
aggregate score
*We use a weighted average to of beacon scores to create the overall numeric
score. The weighting is based on the number of beacons earned. The weights are in
parenthesis.
Pro-Tip: 80% of donors say that they would rather donate to a
“complete” rating than one with just 1 or 2 beacons, even if it is a
lower overall score.

10. Who uses Charity Navigator?
Small individual
donors
Every day donors who want
to make sure they are giving
to an effective, impactful &
trustworthy organization
“I will not donate to a charity
unless they receive a 3 or 4 star
on Charity Navigator”
- Debbie who gives $5-10K per
year
Foundations and
grant makers
Foundations of all sizes use
Charity Navigator as an
initial due diligence screen
“We use Charity Navigator as
an initial screening tool when
reviewing applications- if they
are not a 3 or 4 star charity,
they don’t move on”
- Foundation Program Officer
Institutional DAFs
Use it when researching
recommendations for high
net worth philanthropists
“I provide giving
recommendations to high net
worth individuals. A lot of my
research is on Charity
Navigator”
- DAF advisor

11. Impact & Results
Beacon

12. Why should you complete an
Impact & Results beacon?
● Impact is important to donors!
● Donors trust organizations that
can summarize WHAT they’ve
accomplished
*2022 Donor Trust Report by Give.org - summarizing five years of survey data (2017 - 2022)
with a sample of over 3000 donors per year
https://give.org/docs/default-source/donor-trust-library/donor_trust_report_2022_five_year_review.pdf

13. 19
Among 885 frequent Charity Navigator site users, a donor survey and
donation data tell us that the most savvy donors prefer charities with more
beacons, particularly Impact & Results
● 80% of surveyed donors will choose a 4 beacon charity with a 93% over a
charity with a 97% & 1 beacon
● Just the presence of Impact & Results influenced donor selection
○ 57% would donate to a 3 star charity if it had a high I&R score
● Comments emphasized Impact & Results
“Impact and positive results towards the charity's goals seem like the
biggest challenge to rating, but are becoming the higher metric for me.”
More from the Donor’s Perspective

14. 18
● Impact & Results (I&R) measures how much an organization achieves relative
to the cost required
● Cost-effectiveness assessment methodologies are designed
program-by-program
● Because each program-specific methodology requires significant analyst time
to create, this beacon is slower to scale than Charity Navigator’s other beacons
What does the Impact & Results Beacon measure?

15. Nonprofit measures
outcomes
The Impact & Results Rating Process
Charity Navigator subtracts a measure of
the “counterfactual” from the measured
outcome.
Nonprofit
reported
outcome
Outcome
without
activity
Impact
Nonprofit provides value
to the planet, people, or
animals
Nonprofit shares their
outcomes and costs
through the Charity
Navigator Nonprofit Portal
Was that impact cost
effective compared to
a benchmark?
Outcome converted
into a dollar/impact
metric
=
-

16. The Impact & Results Rating Process
Outcome per dollar Impact & Results score
Dollar/Impact metric is less than the benchmark value 100
Highly cost effective
Dollar/Impact metric is equal to the benchmark value 80
Cost effective
Dollar/Impact metric is greater than the benchmark
value
65
Not cost effective
We compare our cost-effectiveness ratio to the benchmark to create our impact &
results score

17. Animal Welfare
Trap-neuter-release
Low-cost spay and neuter clinic
Animal shelter
Wildlife sanctuary (coming soon!)
Climate Change
Afforestation & Reforestation
Education
Youth Mentoring
Shared Book Reading
Postsecondary Scholarships
Which programs do we currently evaluate?
Financial Health
Veterans Disability Benefits Assistance
Financial Counseling
Food Distribution
Meal program
Grocery program
Food bank
Delivered & congregate meals
Housing & Homelessness
Permanent supportive housing
Emergency shelter
Health & Wellbeing
Financial assistance for medical patients
Eyeglasses provision
Cataract surgery
Antiretroviral therapy
Water quality
Other
Goods provision

18. What you need to know
● Eligibility: program area + 15% rule
● Currently, ratings are based on an evaluation of one program only
● Earning this beacon can potentially dramatically affect points to your score
● Some organizations are rated due to rating or data partnerships with other
organizations
Pro Tip:
If you are eligible for an Impact & Results score, review the
data elements and their definitions in the questionnaire prior
to submitting your information in the portal.
www.charitynavigator.org/portal

19. ● No deduction to Encompass score
● We are constantly creating new methodologies - check back often
● Coming soon: Capacity for Measuring Impact (universal eligibility!)
What if you’re not eligible for an Impact Rating?

20. Sector best practices indicate that M&E is
foundational for effectively measuring outcomes
Why Capacity for Measuring Impact (Monitoring &
Evaluation)?
“State of Evaluation Report -
2016”
“92% of nonprofit organizations engaged in
evaluation in the past year”
- State of Evaluation Report 2016
M&E allows organizations to analyze critical
aspects of their work and answer the following
questions:

21. The CapMI tool has 8 to 15 metrics, depending on
organization’s annual revenue
Section 1: Planning and Design (5 metrics)
Section 2: Program Formation (4 metrics)
Section 3: Data Collection and Analysis (3 metrics)
Section 4: Reporting and Distribution (2 metrics)
Section 5: Use of Results (1 metrics)
Capacity to Measure Impact Assessment

22. 19
● Visit the Nonprofit Portal and sign up if you don’t already have an account in order to
facilitate your data submissions
● Determine if an assessment methodology has been developed for at least one program
that your organization is currently running (15% rule)
○ Complete the Impact & Results questionnaire on the Nonprofit Portal
○ This data will be used to update your organization’s Impact & Results score before
our next release
● Help us launch the Capacity for Measuring Impact Assessment by completing the test
version in the nonprofit portal (now live!)
What should you do now?

23. Ask us About
Impact & Results!
Q&A Session