How We Evaluate Charities
A 100-point framework measuring what matters: how effectively each charity is set up to deliver results, and whether it’s the right fit for Muslim donors. No jargon, full transparency.
TL;DR
We aggregate data from multiple sources: IRS Form 990 filings (via ProPublica API), Charity Navigator ratings, Candid transparency seals, BBB accreditation status, and charity websites. We score on two dimensions: Impact (how effectively is the charity set up to deliver results?) and Alignment (is this the right fit for Muslim donors?), with up to 10 points deducted for serious risks. A separate Data Confidence signal tells you how much data we had to work with. Scores above 75 are exceptional, and most organizations cluster in the middle score bands.
The Big Picture
Most charity ratings focus on overhead ratios — how much goes to “programs” vs “admin.”But an organization can be highly efficient at doing something that doesn’t work.
We ask two questions that matter more:
- Impact: How effectively is this charity set up to deliver results? (cost efficiency, evidence practices, financial health, governance)
- Alignment: Is this the right charity for Muslim donors? (cause urgency, donor fit, funding gap, track record)
Each dimension is worth 50 points, with up to 10 points deducted for red flags. A separate Data Confidence signal shows how robust our data is. Then we help you route your donation to the right “wallet” — Zakat or Sadaqah.
1. Gather Data
We pull from IRS filings, rating agencies, and charity websites
2. Extract & Score
AI extracts data; deterministic code calculates scores
3. Validate
Automated checks flag conflicts; citations enable verification
4. Publish
Clear scores and guidance you can act on
Our Perspective
Philosophy: We evaluate from the perspective of Muslim donors seeking to increase safety, dignity, representation, and resilience for Muslim communities worldwide. We focus on charities that either serve Muslim communities directly or demonstrate alignment with donor values.
The Two Dimensions
Every charity receives a score from 0-100, built from two dimensions (50 points each) minus any risk deductions (up to -10 points).
How to read scores: Scores above 75 are exceptional, and most organizations cluster in the middle score bands. A score below 50 doesn’t mean “bad” — it usually means we don’t have enough data yet, or the charity is newer and still building its track record.
Impact
How effectively is this charity set up to deliver results?
Impact assesses organizational health indicators — cost efficiency, financial stewardship, evidence practices, and governance — that research associates with effective programs. Most sub-components are structural proxies, not direct outcome measurements.
What We Measure (50 points total)
- • Cost per beneficiary (6-13 pts): Cause-adjusted benchmarks with smooth interpolation
- • Directness (3-5 pts): Direct service vs indirect approaches
- • Financial health (7 pts): Working capital ratio (resilient range is generally ~3-12 months)
- • Program ratio (5-7 pts): Percentage of spending on actual programs
- • Evidence & outcomes (5-10 pts): Verified → Tracked → Measured → Reported → Unverified
- • Theory of change (5-7 pts): Has a documented logic model?
- • Governance (10 pts): Board size and oversight
Impact always totals 50 points, but these component weights are rebalanced by archetype (for example direct-service vs systemic-change organizations).
Cause-Adjusted Benchmarks
Food: <$0.25/meal excellent, $0.25-0.50 good
Education: <$100/student/yr excellent, $100-300 good
Healthcare: <$25/patient (primary), <$500 (surgical)
Humanitarian: <$25/beneficiary excellent, $25-75 good (with conflict-zone adjustment)
The overhead myth: Low overhead isn’t always good. A legal advocacy org might have higher admin costs because lawyers are expensive — but win cases protecting millions of Muslims. We consider context, not just ratios.
What’s a “Theory of Change”? It’s the charity’s explanation of why their approach should work — the logical steps from “what we do” to “lives improved.”Charities that have written this down tend to be more thoughtful about whether their programs actually work.
A note on what Impact measures: Most Impact sub-components (financial health, governance, program ratio) are organizational health indicators, not measurements of direct outcomes. They tell us whether a charity is well-positioned to deliver results, not whether it has definitively achieved them. Where charities provide verified outcome data, we weight it accordingly.
Alignment
Is this the right charity for Muslim donors?
Alignment measures whether your donation would make more difference here than elsewhere, and whether the charity is a natural fit for Muslim donors. It rewards charities working in urgent, underserved spaces.
What We Measure (50 points total)
- • Muslim donor fit (19 pts): Zakat clarity, asnaf categories, Muslim-focused mission
- • Cause urgency (13 pts): Humanitarian crises and extreme poverty score highest
- • Underserved space (7 pts): Niche causes and underserved populations
- • Track record (6 pts): Years of operation and demonstrated reliability
- • Funding gap (5 pts): Smaller orgs where your dollar goes further
Why Muslim-focused charities often score higher: Many serve communities overlooked by mainstream philanthropy. Your Zakat dollar may go further at a charity serving Muslim refugees than at a massive international org with thousands of donors.
Size-Adjusted Expectations
Emerging (<$1M): We reward hustle, not formal rigor
Growing ($1-10M): Standard expectations, building systems
Established (>$10M): Full accountability expected
Data Confidence Signal
Outside the scoreSeparate from the 100-point score, we compute a Data Confidence signal (0.0-1.0) that tells you how much data we had to work with. This considers third-party verification, transparency seals, and how many independent sources corroborate the same facts.
Risk Assessment
Even strong charities can have red flags. We identify concerns and apply point deductions (up to -10 points total) when we find issues that could affect your donation’s impact. Deductions are size-adjusted: emerging organizations (<$1M) get lighter penalties for missing formal systems, while established organizations (>$10M) are held to higher standards.
Red Flags We Check
- -5Program ratio under 50% (most money not reaching programs)
- -5Board under 3 members (governance concerns)
- -3Charity Navigator advisory flag
- -2Less than 1 month operating reserves
- -2No outcome tracking (size-adjusted)
- -1No theory of change documented (size-adjusted)
What We DON’T Penalize
- Conflict zone operations — Higher costs in Gaza, Syria, Yemen are legitimate
- Newer organizations — Less data doesn’t mean worse; emerging orgs get lighter risk expectations
- Non-Muslim-focused work — We evaluate all charities fairly
How We Verify Our Work
We know trust must be earned. Here’s what happens behind the scenes to make sure our evaluations are accurate and fair.
Every Claim Has a Source
When we say a charity has a 92% program expense ratio, that number comes from their IRS Form 990. When we mention a Charity Navigator rating, that links to their actual profile. You can verify any factual claim we make by following the citation to the original source.
When Sources Disagree
Sometimes Charity Navigator reports different revenue than the IRS filing. When this happens, we log the conflict and follow a clear priority: official IRS filings beat rating agency data, which beats self-reported information from charity websites. You see the winning value; we keep records of what was overridden.
Apples to Apples
A legal advocacy organization has different cost structures than a food bank. We use cause-adjusted benchmarks — different scales for food, education, healthcare, humanitarian, and other cause areas. This means a humanitarian relief org is compared against humanitarian benchmarks, not education benchmarks.
The “Case Against”
Every evaluation includes structured risk checks and any applicable point deductions. Some profiles also include expanded narrative limitations. If a charity lacks rigorous impact studies or has governance concerns, we flag that in the evaluation data.
Special Consideration: Conflict Zones
Charities operating in active conflict zones (Gaza, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine) face legitimately higher costs — security, logistics, and staff safety all cost more in war zones. Our cause-adjusted benchmarks for humanitarian work account for this context rather than penalizing organizations for circumstances beyond their control.
See It In Action
We’ve evaluated 167 charities using this framework. Here’s what the data reveals.
Charities by Cause Area
Click a bubble to see all charities in that cause
What Makes a Top-Rated Charity?
They're more effective with your donation
Our top 18 charities score 12 points higher on Impact. They deliver more per dollar, with stronger evidence and room to absorb additional funding.
They align with Muslim donor priorities
+11 points higher on Alignment — mission fit, cause urgency, and funding gap.
They avoid red flags
Top charities lose few or zero points to risk deductions — healthy reserves, adequate board oversight, and documented outcomes.
Based on comparing 18 charities scoring 80+ against 149 others.
Top Pick by Cause Area
If you care about a specific cause, here's our highest-rated charity in each area:
Click any charity to see their full evaluation. We've evaluated 167 charities across 16 cause areas.
Zakat Classification
Beyond the score, we help you decide if a charity accepts Zakat. This is a binary classification based on what the charity claims on its website, not a quality judgment — a Sadaqah-only charity can still have an excellent score.
Zakat Eligible
The charity explicitly claims to accept Zakat donations on their website. They typically serve Zakat-eligible beneficiaries (poor, needy, refugees, debt relief) and may have fund segregation policies.
Sadaqah
The charity does not explicitly claim to accept Zakat on their website. These charities are suitable for general Sadaqah donations but may or may not serve Zakat-eligible beneficiaries.
The Eight Zakat Categories (Asnaf)
When a charity claims zakat eligibility, we note which Quranic categories (9:60) their work serves:
1. Al-Fuqara — The poor (below nisab)
2. Al-Masakin — The destitute
3. Al-Amileen — Zakat administrators
4. Al-Muallafatul Quloob — New Muslims
5. Ar-Riqab — Freeing captives (refugees, trafficking victims)
6. Al-Gharimeen — Those in debt
7. Fi Sabilillah — In Allah’s path (education, humanitarian, dawah)
8. Ibnus-Sabil — Stranded travelers (displaced persons)
Important: Our Zakat classifications are informational only and do not constitute religious rulings. They are based on what charities claim on their own websites. Please consult a qualified scholar for definitive guidance on your specific situation.
Our Data Sources
We aggregate data from multiple trusted sources and reconcile conflicts automatically. When sources disagree, we favor official filings and verified data.
Data Sources
- IRS Form 990 — Official financial filings (via ProPublica API)
- Charity Navigator — Ratings, financial health, accountability scores
- Candid (GuideStar) — Transparency seals, outcome tracking data
- BBB Wise Giving Alliance — Governance standards
- Charity Websites — Programs, mission, Zakat policies
- Web Search — Zakat claims, third-party evaluations, awards discovered across the web
Cost Benchmarks
We use cause-adjusted benchmarks informed by evidence-based giving research to compare cost-effectiveness across different types of charities (food, healthcare, education, etc.)
What We Extract
- Revenue, expenses, program expense ratios
- Board size, working capital ratios
- Outcome measurement and years of tracking
- Zakat claims from charity websites
- Third-party ratings and transparency seals
- Theory of change and program descriptions
How We Use AI
We use AI to process large amounts of data consistently. The AI extracts and structures data from websites, PDFs, and filings. The scoring itself uses deterministic code — the AI never decides point values or makes scoring judgments.
We’re transparent about this because we believe it produces more scalable and consistent analysis.
What AI Does
- • Extracts structured data from Form 990s and charity websites
- • Parses rating agency pages (CN, Candid, BBB)
- • Detects Zakat claims on charity websites
- • Generates narrative summaries citing specific sources
- • Searches for theory of change documents
What Code Does (Not AI)
- • All scoring math — deterministic Python functions
- • Wallet tag assignment — rule-based on Zakat claims
- • Risk deductions — formula-based on red flags
- • Tier classification — threshold-based scoring
Quality Controls
- Cited sources — every claim references specific data
- Reproducible scores — same data = same score every time
- Community feedback — report errors and we’ll investigate
- Open methodology — our scoring rubric is documented
Limitation: This is an automated system. AI can misinterpret website content or miss information that requires human context. We do not manually review every evaluation before publishing. If you notice an error in a charity’s evaluation, please let us know and we’ll investigate.
Full Transparency: View Our AI Prompts
We publish core prompts and prompt annotations — from data extraction to narrative generation to quality validation. See how we instruct models and where we continue expanding prompt-level transparency.
View all promptsWhat We Don’t Do
We don’t penalize conflict-zone charities unfairly. Operating in places like Gaza or Syria costs more due to security and logistics. We account for this.
We don’t issue religious rulings. Our Zakat classifications are informational. Consult a scholar for your specific situation.
We don’t take money from charities we rate. Our evaluations are independent. We’re funded by donors who share our mission.
We don’t manually review every evaluation. This is an automated system that prioritizes consistency and citation. We verify through sources, not human judgment —which means we may miss nuance that a human expert would catch.
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