High Impact Holiday Giving

1. Provide emergency food for hungry families

2. Help new teachers succeed

3. Improve health in the world's poorest communities by investing in community-based health and development programs.

4. Give children a strong start in life

5. Keep families healthy

6. Redesign schools for better learning

7. Create young readers and lifelong learners

8. Deliver life-saving medical treatments to children

9. Move the poorest out of poverty

10. Feed families, increase income, and preserve the environment

List of U.S. nonprofits, organizations, and resources mentioned

List of International nonprofits, organizations, and resources mentioned

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In addition to our Center's analyses, the following sites provide pre-vetted opportunities for donors seeking to make a bigger difference this holiday season.

• If you care about improving education in the U.S., the federal Department of Education announced new winners in the i3 Investing in Innovation Fund competition. Several of these organizations have been profiled or mentioned in our past donor guidance, and several others are likely candidates for profiling in future. The winners are divided into two categories: “validation,” in which organizational models are based on moderate levels of evidence, and “development,” in which organizations present relatively untested ideas that nonetheless have a high potential for impact. The 20 top-rated winners were chosen from among 727 applications. For donors, funding an I3 winner also provides financial leverage, as we discussed in Leveraging Innovation in Education: An Act-Now Opportunity for #GivingTuesday.
• If you care about education, poverty, and at-risk youth issues in the U.S., the Social Impact Exchange’s S&I 100 provides a list of 100 nonprofits whose results have been examined by outside experts and who have a stated interest and capacity to expand. Our center's team contributed to the development of this new resource for donors looking for evidence of impact.
• If you care about global development issues, Innovations for Poverty Action and GiveWell assess programs based on both evidence of results and cost-effectiveness.
• If you care about violence prevention, the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence identifies the most effective programs in that space.
• If you care about ways to enhance child development, Child Trends catalogues which programs work - and which don't.

For donors looking for additional information on US-based nonprofits they already support, the following sites offer information beyond overhead ratios which remain a crude and poor proxy for understanding a nonprofit's effectiveness. Members of our center serve as advisors to both organizations as they work to address issues of nonprofit impact and effectiveness.

• Guidestar, in partnership the BBB Wise Giving Alliance and Independent Sector, has a charting impact feature which provides information on nonprofit goals, strategies, and achievements.
• Charity Navigator has expanded its traditional focus on ratings based on financial ratios to include metrics related to nonprofit accountability and transparency.

• How to Choose a Charity for Holiday Giving: "Donate like an investor" and "Think about value, not dollars" are tips from the Center in this U.S. News & World Report article on cost-effective giving.
• Putting Charities to the Test: New York Times Fixes columnist Tina Rosenberg examines effective giving with our founding executive director, Katherina Rosqueta.
• A Day to Give, not Spend: Founding executive director Katherina Rosqueta along with Wharton professors Deborah Small and Stephen Hoch are quoted in Knowledge@Wharton article on #GivingTuesday, an intended antidote to Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.
• Center for High Impact Philanthropy aims for social impact: The University of Pennsylvania's daily newspaper interviews founding executive director Katherina Rosqueta and research director Carol McLaughlin about helping donors answer the "million dollar question."
• Can the Cans, Romney: Matt Yglesias of Slate Magazine, highlights our guidance on effective giving in reference to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.