Beyond Charity Navigator - How to pick a good NGO partner

This article was cross-posted from Alanna Shaikh at Blood and Milk.

Those of us who work in international development inevitably work with NGOs. You may be employed by them, donate to them, volunteer with them, join a coalition, or contract them to do something. When you enter into that relationship, you need to know as much about your new partner as possible. Unfortunately, sites such as Charity Navigator are essentially irrelevant. All they can tell you is that the NGO is not actually fraudulent. That’s a good start, but it doesn’t take you far.

I recommend you go deeper. You can get information from the organization’s website, publicity documents, and annual report, supplemented by some time on Google, and any 501c3 nonprofit will have a tax filing available publicly. Some things to look at:

1. What kinds of projects do they do?
Yes, it’s obvious, but a good place to begin. Does the organization have a specific area of specialty they stick to, or do they anything they can find funding for? What parts of the world do they work in? Do they do research? Do they do advocacy? This can’t really tell you if the organization is competent, but it can give you a gut feeling about whether you like what they do. You won’t want to start a relationship if you don’t like their work.

2. The Board of Directors
Who’s on the board? What is the expertise of the board members? This can give you a good idea of the NGO’s approach to its work. For example, take a look at Project HOPE’s board. It’s pretty much all pharmaceutical company executives. That says to me that HOPE is going to be focused on bringing donated drugs to the developing world. Donations are a short-term approach to solving health problems, and don’t address structural obstacles to good health care. However, Project HOPE probably never runs short of drugs or supplies, which would be great in an emergency. Or look at the board of the National Democratic Institute (NDI). It includes Madeleine Albright and Tom Daschle. NDI is likely to be in tune with mainstream ideas and well-connected politically; if they issue a report, it will get attention. They’ll probably stick to the middle of the road. They are not about to start advocating for radical social justice. Most NGOs will have a list of board members on their website; if they don’t, you should wonder why.