How do we rate charities?
We believe our ratings dramatically improve the quantity and quality of information available to donors.
We seek to help as many givers as possible, but as we grow we will cover more and more charities.
Because we aim to help givers and to celebrate charities across the country, we use the following guidelines for choosing which charities to evaluate.
- Location: Organisation has to be based in the UK.
- Legal form: Charity has to be registered with a Charity Commission in the UK. In exceptional circumstances we would also evaluate a company limited by guarantee, social enterprise or CIC if they have some charitable objects.
- Length of operations: Two or more years of recent accounts must be available. Many of our metrics are based on 3-year or 5-year figures.
How do we classify charities?
You can search for charities using our Keyword Search below or by entering the Keywords on the Search function on the right-hand sidebar.
We based our categories on the International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations, Major Groups and Subgroups (INCPO) taken from here.
If you think we’ve missed something, please let me know via our Get in Touch page.
Charity Overall ratings
Our ratings provide clear, objective, and reliable assessments of financial health, accountability and transparency and accessibility of charities. By utilising Charity Clarity, donors can learn how a charity compares on these metrics with other charities throughout the sector.
As we continuously improve our charity ratings, we align our rating scales to the industry standards we see from reviewing charities. This table shows how we display our Overall Ratings.
These Overall Ratings of Charities are made up of several metrics which obtain individual ratings, based on the following criteria.
| Numerical Rating | Qualitative Rating | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Excellent | Exceeds sector standards and outperforms most charities for this metric. | |
 |
Good | Meets sector standards and performs better than most charities for this metric. | |
 |
Average | Nearly meets sector standards and performs as well as most charities for this metric. | |
 |
Needs Improvement | Fails to meet sector standards and performs below most charities for this metric. | |
 |
Poor | Performs far below sector standards and below nearly all charities for this metric. | |
Detailed ratings for metrics
The following table outlines how we measure the individual metrics for the Financial Health category.
| Category | Metric | Description | Rating-0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Health | Late in Submitting Accounts | Average number of days over last 5 years* | More than 73 days | More than 50 and less than or equal to 73 days | More than 25 and less than or equal to 50 days | More than 5 and less than or equal to 25 days | More than 0 and less than or equal to 5 days | 0 days |
| Financial Health | Working Capital | For General including Religious Activities—For Schools and High Trading Income Organisations—
For Makes Grants to Individuals and Organisations — Working Capital / Latest Year’s Total Expenses |
Less than minus 1—
Less than 0.5 — Less than 1 |
More than or equal to minus 1 but less than 0.2—
More than or equal to 0.5 but less than 1 — More than or equal to 1 but less than 2
|
More than or equal to 0.2 but less than 1—
More than or equal to 1 but less than 2 — More than or equal to 2 but less than 3 |
More than or equal to 1 but less than 2—
More than or equal to 2 but less than 3 — More than or equal to 3 but less than 5 |
More than or equal to 2 but less than 5—
More than or equal to 3 but less than 6 — More than or equal to 5 but less than 8 |
More than or equal to 5—
More than or equal to 6 — More than or equal to 8 |
| Financial Health | Expense Growth | (Total Expenditure for latest year – Total Expenditure for 3rd Latest Year)/Total Expenditure for 3rd Latest Year** | More than 100% | More than 50% and less than or equal to 100% | More than 25% and less than or equal to 50% | More than 0% and less than or equal to 25% | More than minus 30% and less than or equal to 0% | Less than or equal to minus 30% |
| Financial Health | Total Net Expenditure / Total Income | For Makes Grants to Individuals and Organisations (Total Expenditure – Grants Made) for Latest 3 Years / Total Income for Latest 3 Years—For all others Administrative Expenditure for Latest 3 Years / Total Income for Latest 3 Years |
More than 90% | More than 75% and less than or equal to 90% | More than 50% and less than or equal to 75% | More than 1/3 (i.e. one-third) and less than or equal to 50% | More than 20% and less than or equal to 1/3 (i.e. one third) | Less than or equal to 20% |
| Financial Health | Employees over 3 year average income | Number of Employees/3 Year Average Income * 1,000,000 | More than 10 | More than 5 but less than or equal to 10 | More than 2 but less than or equal to 5 | More than 1 but less than or equal to 2 | More than 0.5 but less than or equal to 1 | Less than or equal to 0.5 |
*Current year figure taken at time of calculation. ** Adjusted according to years’ data available.
The following table outlines how we measure the individual metrics for the Accountability and Transparency category.
| Category | Metric | Description | Rating – 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accountability and Transparency | Clarity over Trusteeship Process | Interpretation of information taken from published documents | Unavailable in documentation. | Process, length and associated details unclear from documentation. | Process, length and associated details somewhat unclear from documentation. | Process, length and associated details maintain a basic level of clarity. | Process, length and associated details largely clear from documentation. | Process, length and associated details clear from documentation. |
| Accountability and Transparency | Number of Trustees | Number of Trustees** | More than 15 trustees OR 1-2 trustees |
12-15 trustees | 10-11 trustees | 8-9 trustees | 6-7 trustees | 3-5 trustees |
| Accountability and Transparency | Female Representation | (Number of Women as Trustees or in Senior Management)/(Number of Trustees + Senior Management) | 0% | More than 0% but less than or equal to 10% | More than 10% but less than or equal to 20% | More than 20% but less than or equal to 30% | More than 30% but less than or equal to 45% | More than 45% |
| Accountability and Transparency |
Number of Additional Boards the Trustees Serve On | (Total Additional Boards Served on by all Trustees)/Number of Trustees | Zero OR More than 1 |
More than 0 but less than or equal to 0.1 OR More than 0.9 but less than or equal 1 |
More than 0.1 but less than or equal to 0.2 OR 0.8 but less than or equal to 0.9 |
More than 0.2 but less than or equal to 0.3 OR 0.7 but less than or equal to 0.8 |
More than 0.3 but less than or equal to 0.4 OR 0.6 but less than or equal to 0.7 |
More than 0.4 and less than 0.6 |
| Accountability and Transparency | Social Impact Reporting | Extent to which social impact is measured and reported | No social impact measurement or reporting | Very little social impact measurement and reporting | Some social impact measurement and reporting | Social impact measurement and reporting available but incomplete | Social impact measurement and reporting largely available | Excellent and comprehensive social impact measurement and reporting |
| Accountability and Transparency | Public Relations | Assessment of public relations and communications | Multiple issues which significantly negatively impact upon public perception | Some issues which negatively impact upon public perception | Afew small issues which negatively impact upon public perception | No issues either positive or negative | Largely positive stories which positively impact upon public perception | Systematic and regular evidence of significant positive public perception |
| Accountability and Transparency | Revenue from Trading Activities | Trading Revenue/Income | 0% | More than 0% but less than or equal to 2% | More than 2% but less than or equal to 5% | More than 5% but less than or equal to 20% | More than 20% but less than or equal to 60% | More than 60% |
**Director, instead of Trustee, where relevant. ***Unless charity objectives require all-female team.
The following table outlines how we measure the individual metrics for the Accessibility category.
| Category | Metric | Description | Rating – 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | Contact Details Available | Assessment of how easily relevant phone, email, other contact details are available publicly | No relevant information available | Very little relevant information available | Some relevant information available | Information available but partly incomplete | Information is largely available | Well maintained, high quality and easily accessible information available |
| Accessibility | Clear and Accessible Information | Assessment of how easily available information is publicly | No information easily available | Very little information easily available | Some information easily available | Information easily available but partly incomplete | Information is largely available | Well maintained, high quality and easily accessible information available |
| Accessibility | Recently Updated | Assessment of how recent the publicly available information is | No recent information available | Very little recent information available | Largely irrelevant recent information available | Recent information available but partly incomplete | Recent information largely available | Well maintained, high quality and easily accessible information available |
| Accessibility | Sentiment Analysis | Sentiment Analysis uses natural language processing, text analysis and computational linguistics to identify and extract subjective information from the internet. Currently, we track positive, negative and neutral Facebook and Twitter presence and standardise it on a continuous rating scale of 0-5. | ||||||
| Accessibility | Google PageRank | Google PageRank number on a scale of 1-10 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 or above |
| Accessibility | Vision and Strategy | Assessment of availability and efficacy of news and press information publicly | No relevant information available | Very little information available | Largely irrelevant information available | Relevant information available but partly incomplete | Relevant information largely available | Well maintained, high quality and easily accessible information available |