Charity Navigator: Doing Your Donation Homework

Charity Navigator helps donors give intelligently.  The 501 (c)(3) nonprofit has evaluated thousands of charitable organizations to determine their financial health.  Anyone in the world can sign on to the website and freely access financial evaluations that show how much actual giving is done in an organization versus overhead like administrative costs.  Even singer Elton John uses Charity Navigator to see how well is own charity is doing.  From the site:

"By guiding intelligent giving, we aim to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which givers and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation's most persistent challenges."

The Charity Navigator blog is currently spotlighting vetted charities helping with the tornado disaster in the Southeastern U.S.