Intelligent Giving website will return if funds can be found

By: 

Cheryl Chapman

Managing Editor, Philanthropy UK

Charity evaluation website Intelligent Giving is expected to restart its work around Easter with a new focus on effectiveness, if the £120k per annum needed to run it can be raised.

The organisation was closed and deregistered as a charity in August 2009 because of a lack of funds and taken over by charity think tank New Philanthropy Capital (NPC).

Tris Lumley, head of strategy at NPC, said the new version of Intelligent Giving would maintain its approach to evaluating the top 500 fundraising charities based on transparency but would also take on some of NPC’s focus on measuring effectiveness. The site would continue to include charity profiles, blogs and forums.

Lumley is confident that backers will be found. He says, “We are working as hard as we can to ensure the return of Intelligent Giving – if it ceased to exist it would be a great loss to the sector as it provides donors with analysis, not just information. We have always been very supportive of Intelligent Giving and can see value in bringing together transparency and effectiveness.

"We are currently researching how transparency can drive effectiveness and will be publishing a methodology report in the Spring. We believe if charities are transparent about their work but aren’t effective, then external and internal pressures will be brought to bear and will drive up the effectiveness of that organisation.”

Staff from NPC will start blogging about the new site over the next few weeks. A statement on the Intelligent Giving website said the organisation would contact the charities about which it had written reports, to tell them ‘what will be happening to their profiles’.