051. Charity Navigator's changing expectations and its impacts on US nonprofit behaviors: Michael Thatcher, Charity Navigator's CEO

Charity Navigator is a free online resource for US-based donors, an intermediary rating agency with 11 million unique users per year. It currently rates just about 200.000 US-registered nonprofits, both domestic and internationally operating ones, and is quite influential in driving the behavior of donors and, indirectly, of nonprofits that are rated on the platform.

Charity Navigator has changed the indicators with which it rates nonprofits in significant ways in the past 10 years - and more is to come. High time to have a talk with Michael Thatcher, CEO of Charity Navigator, about what they are up to!

Summary

Who pays for generating the data that nonprofits need, and who should pay?

What about the idea that some or all nonprofit outcomes are fundamentally immeasurable or have unmeasurable components?

How could the US government IRS 990 forms that nonprofits have to submit to the US Treasury Service be improved to provide better data on activities and actual results? 

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Michael Thatcher, President & CEO at Charity Navigator, on his organization’s changing expectations of nonprofits, and how this impacts  US nonprofit behaviors.

Michael’s Bio:

• President & CEO of Charity Navigator
• Board member of Giving Gap and Keystone Accountability
• Chief of Technology for Asia, Middle East, and Africa at Microsoft

We discuss: 

• Charity Navigator purposively does not charge donors or nonprofits to use its platform.
• Charity Navigator’s methodology has changed substantively since its inception – and in ways that at least partially respond to the widespread criticism that had been lobbed at the agency by nonprofit leaders, analysts, and funders.  One of many criticisms had been that CN reinforced the 'overhead myth' and thereby indirectly harmed the nonprofit sector.
• There is an interesting tension that CN has to hold between being largely publically funded (through average donations of $45 per person, annually) and offering just enough – but not too much – information to the average user of Charity Navigator's platform
• Which non-US countries are considering starting an intermediary rating agency similar to CN, and how are they going about it?

Resources:

Michael’s LinkedIn

Michael’s Email

Michael’s Twitter

Charity Navigator Website

Charity Navigator’s Press Room

Charity Navigator’s Knowledge Base

Youtube video of this podcast

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