Best 5 Reliable Charities to Donate To
When selecting charities to donate to, it’s essential that your donation make the best use possible of its contributions. As some top-rated ones may share similar names to low-rated ones, be sure to visit each group’s website and view financial documents or any other pertinent details before deciding.
Save the Children: This NGO operates in Gaza and earned a 97% rating on Charity Navigator; make your donation here.
1. World Food Programme USA
The World Food Programme USA works within the US to generate support for the United Nations World Food Programmeme to combat global hunger by raising funds and shaping policy decisions in this regard.
This non-profit is an esteemed institution that helps those experiencing hunger, poverty, and malnutrition. Their services include providing food to those in need, empowering women and girls, offering life-changing education, and working to prevent disease by providing safe water and sanitation facilities.
The organisation is currently providing aid in the aftermath of the Gaza conflict. They received a donation of $2.5 million from music artist Abel Tesfaye’s XO Humanitarian Fund that will enable them to help more than 14,000 individuals living with hunger in Gaza.
Not limited to emergency relief, the organisation also works towards long-term food security and sustainable development. In 2022 alone, they provided food or cash assistance for 15.9 million individuals so they could purchase their own meals and invest in livelihoods and community assets. They were also helped to prepare for and mitigate climate shocks, as well as arrange insurance to cover losses due to weather extremes.
WFP operates under the assumption that enough nutritious food exists to feed all people worldwide, yet close to one billion people still go hungry every day. Their key challenges include conflict, economic shocks, climate change, and high fertiliser prices.
WFP boasts an efficiency ratio of 93%, meaning that 99 cents out of every dollar donated goes towards helping those in need around the globe—well above industry benchmarks of 75% set by Charity Navigator and BBB Wise Giving Alliance.
2. The Humane League
Animal rights groups like the Humane League work tirelessly to advance animal welfare standards through multiple means. While other animal welfare organisations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals focus mainly on changing laws regarding animal rights, THL uses grassroots campaigns, movement-building efforts, and corporate and vegetarian advocacy tactics to push corporations towards improving their practices, achieving incremental wins more frequently for animals this way. As a 501(c)3 non-profit, donors can trust that their contributions will be efficiently spent toward supporting programs.
THL operates in the US, Mexico, the UK, and Japan to promote animal rights through grassroots campaigning, research, vegetarian advocacy, and community outreach. One of its most successful campaigns involved pressuring Aramark to adopt their Better Chicken Commitment, which will remove cages from 130 billion factory farms globally. THL works towards decreasing consumption of animal products through seasonal promotions such as Veganuary Veg*n Pledge programmes like Veganuary Pledge in January or Veganuary Pledge programmes like Veganuary.
THL holds a four-star rating from America’s Best Charities, meaning that it fulfils high standards for accountability and programme effectiveness. Thanks to efficient management by an exceptional staff and a non-salaried President/Board of Directors, 97% of donations to THL go towards programme activities. You can help by making your gift today; your gifts can save lives and make a difference #ForTheAnimals! THL’s Fast Action Network empowers members with simple online actions to reduce animal suffering.
3. Good Food Institute
The Good Food Institute (GFI) is a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for plant- and cell-based animal product alternatives. Established as part of Mercy for Animals in 2016, with Bruce Friedrich as its Chief Executive Officer, GFI works towards making alternative proteins (APs) comparable in price and taste with traditional proteins through research, lobbying governments to increase funding, and working with large food companies so they offer more AP products.
GFI hopes to reduce greenhouse gases by supporting an effort that decreases meat consumption. To accomplish this goal, multiple organizations are needed; GFI can serve as a great place for donors who wish to support an impactful program that has an immediate positive impact on climate change.
Sam Bankman Fried’s financial collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and subsequent donation of $250,000 to the Good Food Institute have raised questions over their effectiveness as charities. GFI has yet to respond on whether it plans on keeping or returning this grant, as it cannot reveal donor details without receiving written authorization from each one.
GiveWell has awarded GFI four stars, meaning it is an efficient charity to donate to. Their four-star rating indicates their work promoting plant-based, fermentation-enabled meat for consumers, scientists, business leaders, and policymakers worldwide. GivingWell strongly suggests supporting them as GFI seeks to improve global food systems through education on plant-based foods such as fermentation-enabled and cultivated meat for consumers, scientists, business leaders, and policymakers.
4. Wild Animal Initiative
The Wild Animal Initiative works to alleviate suffering among wild animals by researching, funding, and promoting academic research to enhance wild animal welfare. WAI has supported projects that explore topics with significant impact, like improving captive wildlife lives, exploring the subjectivity of experiences among wild animals, or what defines “a good life.”
WAI believes it’s possible for humans to create interventions to ease wild animal suffering, provided these are informed by scientific data. They therefore focus on expanding wild animal welfare research, especially among underrepresented communities such as people of colour, self-identified women, and non-binary individuals, and encourage these researchers to incorporate welfare considerations into their work.
Because of these reasons, WAI earned a four-star rating from ACE and is highly recommended as an organization to donate to. If you would like to contribute, click here and donate.
5. Rainforest Trust
Rainforest Trust is one of the world’s premier conservation charities that works to conserve rainforests and other tropical ecosystems. Through collaboration with trusted in-country partner NGOs and communities to protect these natural habitats, they have already saved more than 42.7 million acres over the past 30 years.
Rainforest Trust unveiled at the 2017 Protecting Our Planet summit its commitment to contributing $500 million towards protecting 30 percent of world habitats by 2025—one of the largest private funding pledges ever for biodiversity preservation.
Project implementers receiving funds under this programme can engage in activities to establish or expand protected or conserved areas on land, in inland waters, and at sea in collaboration with indigenous peoples, local communities, governments, and civil society, such as creating legal pathways to protection and conducting field surveys to identify high-priority endangered species or ecological hotspots.
Over 95% of donated dollars go directly towards purchasing and protecting threatened rainforest eco-systems, chosen based on their high biodiversity value. Staff receive living wages while the organisation boasts very low administrative overhead costs—an exemplary model for other non-profit organisations to follow.
EnviroBuild has joined forces with Rainforest Trust US to support their work protecting South American rainforests. We donate 10% of all sales from EnviroBuild products sold towards this excellent organisation that does an outstanding job protecting vanishing Amazonian and global rainforests, using money donated towards purchasing and protecting sanctuaries that host these ecosystems.