Helping donors give with confidence

What we do

One score, three trusted sources

Choosing a charity is hard. Evaluating one is even harder. GiveWell, Charity Navigator, and CharityWatch each spend enormous resources vetting thousands of organisations — but their ratings don't always agree, and most donors don't have time to compare all three.

GiveWise solves that by combining scores from all three evaluators into a single, transparent composite score. You get the benefit of expert analysis across multiple frameworks in one place.

Our data sources

Built on expert evaluation

Independence

No affiliations. No paid placements.

Why it matters

Your giving choices have real consequences

Each year, people around the world donate hundreds of billions of dollars to charitable causes. It is one of the most meaningful things a person can do with money. But research consistently shows that the difference in impact between the most and least effective organisations working on the same cause can be a factor of 100 or more — sometimes far greater.

A donation to a highly effective global health charity might provide a full course of malaria prevention for a child at risk for under $5. The same amount given to a poorly run organisation in the same cause area might achieve almost nothing. The generosity is identical. The outcome is not.

This is not a reason for cynicism — it is a reason for information. When donors have access to rigorous, independent evaluations, they can direct their generosity toward the organisations that make every dollar go furthest. GiveWise exists to make that access as simple as possible.

Our story

Built out of frustration — and care

GiveWise was started by a group of donors who kept running into the same problem: spending an hour comparing charity ratings across three different websites, in three different formats, using three different scoring systems — and still feeling uncertain at the end of it.

GiveWell published detailed cost-effectiveness analyses written for researchers. Charity Navigator issued a four-star rating based on financial metrics and governance. CharityWatch gave letter grades based on spending efficiency. All three organisations were doing serious, valuable work. But none of them were built for a donor who simply wanted to know: of the charities addressing this problem, which one should I trust with my money?

GiveWise was built to answer that question — not by replacing the expert evaluators, but by translating their work into a single, consistent framework that any donor can use in minutes rather than hours.

Data accuracy

Our commitment to getting it right

Every score on GiveWise is derived directly from ratings published by our three source organisations. We do not estimate, extrapolate, or adjust scores — if a charity is not covered by one of our sources, that gap is reflected in the composite rather than filled with assumptions. Transparency about what we know and what we don't is as important to us as the scores themselves.

We review and update all charity data at least annually, with interim corrections applied whenever we identify an error. Our scoring methodology is published in full on the How We Rank page, including a frank discussion of its limitations.

If you believe any score or piece of information on this site is inaccurate, please contact us — we investigate every report and will correct errors promptly.

Get in touch

We want to hear from you

Whether you have a question about a specific charity, a correction to suggest, or just want to say hello — we are always glad to hear from visitors. GiveWise is a small, independent operation and every message is read.

You can reach us at contact@gives-well.com or use our contact page.