The Charities
All proceeds (one hundred percent!) from our sales of note cards and other products, we donate to charity -- but not just any charity. In order to get the most bang for your buck, we seek out and evaluate small, effective, and efficient non-profits. Click here to see the full reports on some of the charities listed below.
The charities below work to solve problems in new ways or address issues that fly under the radar of larger non-profits. These are the charities we support with the proceeds from art sales. In addition to these, we have included some larger non-profits that we believe operate efficiently and effectively (please see below for information on how we compile this list).
If you would like to pick a specific charity to support with your purchase, you can choose from the lists below. If there is a charity you want to support that is not listed here and is yet unknown, please tell us about it! View our favorite charities, charities by subject, or a complete alphabetical list.
Alphabetical list of charities:
more coming soon!
- Asociacion SOLAC- Lima, Peru
- One Acre Fund - IL
- The Polaris Project - DC
- Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - VA
Our favorite charities:
- more coming soon!
- The Polaris Project - DC, U.S. a leading international organization combating human trafficking and modern-day slavery.
- One Acre Fund - IL, U.S. a non-profit organization started in January 2006, with the goal of completely re-thinking how to solve the chronic hunger problem in Africa.
- Asociacion SOLAC- Lima, Peru a Peruvian non-profit organization, which carries on projects in the vicinity of Lima, oriented towards social and economic development.
Charities by subject:
Children
Community Centers
Education
Health
Human Rights
Hunger
Literacy
Microfinance
Natural Resources
Poverty
Service Organizations
How We Rate Charities
We evaluate a charity’s performance based on publicly available financial information as well as in-depth research into the effectiveness of a charity’s programs. In particular, we specialize in finding new, small charities, serving niche causes at a local level.
We do not generally evaluate large, well-established charities, as there has already been much published on the performance of such organizations. We rely on proven charity watchdogs to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of these large organizations.
We highly recommend that you check out the websites for such charity raters as Charity Navigator and American Institute of Philanthropy. These organizations primarily evaluate a charity’s financial health and efficiency as a means of gaging its overall effectiveness. The excellent information on these sites can help you become a more informed donor.
These top charity raters focus on financial data, but do not normally evaluate the effectiveness of a charity’s programs. Philanthroprints, unlike other charity raters, also does in-depth analysis of a non-profit’s programs. This involves working closely with an organization to learn the ins and outs of its service activities. Please click here for information about our methodology, references -- and to see our latest reports.
How We Choose Charities to Evaluate
Because Philanthroprints is run by people, and people have opinions, these opinions carry over to the work we do. What does this mean?
We make value judgments when we pick charities to evaluate and list on this website. We do our utmost to keep our research and evaluations objective (click here to learn more about the criteria we use to grade non-profits).
However, our mission, beliefs, and values guide us in our choice of charities to evaluate. That is, the charities you learn about here are the kinds of organizations that we believe deserve your support - not only because they are efficient and effective - but also because they champion causes that we believe need your money most.
What kinds of charities does this include? Check out our lists to get a specific idea, but generally we seek out charities that help human beings overcome hardship and achieve a higher standard of living.
We believe in helping the poor become self-sufficient; we believe in showing love to children who need it most; we believe in teaching people how to read; we believe in helping immigrants and refugees start a new life; we believe in giving new hope to the destitute.
"Think globally, act locally."
As we mentioned before, we do not generally evaluate large, well-established charities, because we can rely on proven charity watchdogs to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of these large organizations.
Even though large national charities such as Catholic Charities, United Way, Volunteers of America, and United Jewish Communities are usually composed of hundreds of local organizations, charity raters generally do not examine the local shops, but rather focus on evaluating the national organization. This is where our work supplements the work of larger charity raters.
We believe it’s important to seek out outstanding local organizations and to direct resources from donors to these entities. We believe that non-profit organizations working locally are in a unique position to effect sustainable and empowering change in a way that larger organizations often cannot. These are the kinds of organizations you will find on this website.
Clarify your values.
Remember, that just because a charity is not listed or evaluated here, that does not mean it's not up to snuff – ours is not a comprehensive list. In fact, if you know of a charity that deserves support, please tell us about it.
We may not always agree with you on which causes are most important -- this is a matter of opinion and personal belief. But we do hope this site will inspire you. We encourage you, if you are moved by a philanthropic spirit, to get out there and do your own research on charities that support causes you believe in, problems you think are in dire need of a solution. We encourage you to consult our methods and criteria and those of other charity raters for tips on doing your own research.