Checked on 30 September 2026, India time. This supports the donation hub.
All 24 cause categories and all 13 named emergencies have a donation route. The checks covered the recipient's identity, the official giving route, independent assessments where available, published accounts, and specific concerns found during research. No donation was made. Payment acceptance from a particular country, currency conversion and tax relief were not tested.
Tier 1 means UN, government or GiveWell. Tier 2 covers the assessed charities and intermediaries below. Tier 3 is for direct local recommendations subject to the stricter checks in the hub. A tier on a reference identifies its source; it does not make that source a recommended recipient.
What the evidence means
- Financial audit: an unmodified opinion means the auditor found the financial statements fairly presented under the applicable accounting rules. It is not a forensic clearance, a promise that every loss was detected, or proof of program effectiveness.
- Charity Navigator: the stars below belong to the named legal entity and were read from its current profile. They do not transfer automatically to an affiliate, a similarly named organization or a particular project.
- Fund allocation: an appeal about a country can lead to a general donation form. Campaign numbers and photographs do not by themselves prove that a gift is legally restricted to that country.
- Costs: program expenditure includes delivery staff and other operating costs. It is not the same as money or goods received by a household. Low fundraising costs alone do not establish high impact.
Recipient checks
The audit opinions listed below were read in the reports themselves, except EJI's newer FY2025 review, which is explicitly attributed to CharityWatch. CATF's scanned audit was inspected as page images. WaterAid's reports were read through the public filing archive because the official report selector was difficult to retrieve.
| Recipient and scope | Independent check | Accounts reviewed and limits |
|---|---|---|
| GiveDirectly, EIN 27-1661997. Direct cash. | Charity Navigator — Tier 2. | 2024 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. The separate 2025 risk report is discussed below. |
| Mental Health America, EIN 13-1614906. U.S. screening, education and advocacy. | Four stars — Tier 2. | 2025 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. 2024 Form 990 — Tier 2 reports zero professional fundraising fees, alongside other fundraising expenses. Pharmaceutical partnerships are disclosed, not ruled out by this rating. |
| WaterAid America, EIN 30-0181674. International water and sanitation work. | Four stars — Tier 2. | FY2025 audit archive — Tier 2: unmodified financial and major-program compliance opinions; no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses reported. Historical reporting issue below. |
| Habitat for Humanity International, EIN 91-1914868. Housing and communities. | Four stars — Tier 2. | FY2025 consolidated audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. The international organization and independently governed local affiliates are not interchangeable recipients. |
| Pratham USA, EIN 76-0620808. Fundraising for learning programs in India. | Four stars — Tier 2. | 2024 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. These are the U.S. entity's accounts; they are not a separate audit of every Indian implementation site. |
| Disability Rights Fund, EIN 27-5026293. Disability-led organizations and rights. | Four stars — Tier 2. | 2024 combined audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. It combines DRF and Disability Rights Advocacy Fund; the giving route specifies DRF. Its own 2024 Form 990 — Tier 2 reports zero professional fundraising fees. |
| Outright International, EIN 94-3139952. LGBTIQ rights and movement support. | Four stars — Tier 2. | Financial disclosures — Tier 2: FY2025 audit has an unmodified opinion; FY2025 Form 990 is also published. General giving is not an individual evacuation or legal-aid guarantee. |
| Human Rights Watch, EIN 13-2875808. Investigation and advocacy. | Four stars — Tier 2. | Financial disclosures — Tier 2: FY2025 audit has an unmodified opinion. The tax return covering that fiscal year reports about $1.92 million in professional fundraising fees. Direct giving does not erase the organization's fundraising costs. Historical donor restriction below. |
| ICRC, the International Committee of the Red Cross. Armed-conflict relief and protection. | Independent statutory auditor KPMG; this is not a U.S. Charity Navigator-rated affiliate. | 2025 financial report — Tier 2, audit section: true-and-fair-view opinion. The separate Foundation for the ICRC is not the recipient used here. |
| Clean Air Task Force, EIN 04-3512550. Climate and energy policy. | Four stars — Tier 2; Giving Green evaluation — Tier 2. | 2024 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion from Anstiss & Co., dated 8 August 2025. CATF supports a range of technologies, including nuclear and carbon capture; its work is not limited to renewable energy. |
| Rainforest Trust, EIN 13-3500609. Habitat and land protection. | Four stars — Tier 2. | FY2025 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. Read its operating expenses alongside its restricted-donation claims. |
| Oceana Inc., EIN 51-0401308. Marine conservation advocacy. | Three stars — Tier 2, not four. | 2024 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. Its financial summary — Tier 2 reports approximately 73% program spending, 15% administration and 12% fundraising. Those ratios describe spending, not results. |
| Wildlife Conservation Network, EIN 30-0108469. Support for field conservation partners. | Four stars — Tier 2. | 2025 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. 2025 Form 990 — Tier 2 reports zero professional fundraising fees, but nonzero fundraising and operating expenses. |
| SolarAid, UK charity 1115960. Solar lighting and energy access. | Charity Commission record — Tier 1; this is a regulator check, not a U.S. star rating. | 2024–25 report — Tier 2, including the linked audit: unmodified opinion from Crowe U.K. LLP, dated 18 March 2026. The regulator records the accounts as 46 days late. See the payment-recipient distinction below. |
| Village Enterprise, EIN 22-2852248. Business grants, training and savings groups. | Four stars — Tier 2. | FY2025 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. Its published FY2025 Form 990 reports zero professional fundraising fees; the accounts still include fundraising costs. |
| Equal Justice Initiative, EIN 63-1135091. U.S. racial and economic justice. | Four stars — Tier 2; CharityWatch — Tier 2 separately analyzes FY2025 accounts and Form 990. | FY2024 audit directly reviewed — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. Spending includes legal assistance, anti-poverty programs, museums, education and substantial capital projects. The FY2025 audit was not directly inspected in this check. |
| Committee to Protect Journalists, EIN 13-3081500. Journalist protection and press freedom. | Four stars — Tier 2. | 2024 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. Research corrections are a separate question from financial controls; see below. |
| Electronic Frontier Foundation, EIN 04-3091431. Digital rights. | Four stars — Tier 2. | FY2024–25 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion. Giving supports its wider legal, technical and advocacy work. |
| Wikimedia Foundation, EIN 20-0049703. Free-knowledge infrastructure and grants. | Four stars — Tier 2. | FY2024–25 audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion from KPMG. The accounts include substantial reserves; fundraising urgency should be assessed against those accounts. |
| GlobalGiving Foundation, EIN 30-0108263. Intermediary for local organizations. | Four stars — Tier 2; IRS public-charity confirmation — Tier 2. | 2024 consolidated audit — Tier 2: unmodified opinion, relying on another auditor for the UK subsidiary. 2024 Form 990 — Tier 2 reports zero professional fundraising fees. That does not certify every grantee's fundraising arrangements. |
GiveWell, emergency agencies and government funds
GiveWell comes first for donors without a specific cause preference. Its top-charities analysis — Tier 1 supplies the program descriptions and cost estimates used in the hub. The dollar-per-life figures concern modeled average cost-effectiveness of 2022–2024 grants, not a price quoted for a new donation. The top fund can move money between the recommended programs as funding needs change.
WFP: the 2025 audited accounts — Tier 1 have an unmodified opinion. The long-form report also recommends improvements, including controls on advances to cooperating partners. WFP's Ethiopia disclosure — Tier 1 documents actual aid diversion in 2023. An unmodified financial opinion and control problems can coexist.
UNICEF, UNRWA, UNFPA and UNHCR: official donation or appeal pages and the UN Board of Auditors' report index — Tier 1 were checked. The index identifies reports for each agency. This review does not claim to have examined every agency's entire audit or every implementing partner. The OCHA coordination overview — Tier 1 explains coordinated response; coordination is not a guarantee that every transfer reaches its destination.
IFRC: its 2025 consolidated audit — Tier 2 gives a true-and-fair-view opinion. Its internal audit and investigation report — Tier 2 is a separate source on controls and allegations. The Nepal flood form names IFRC as the recipient supporting the Nepal Red Cross response. An IFRC audit is not a separate audit of every national society.
Assam CM Relief Fund: the government contribution instructions — Tier 1 provide a cheque route. The older online payment link returned 404, so it was excluded. The report about checks on 72 YouTube accounts — Tier 3, news source only is context, not clearance of those fundraisers. The government recipient's identity was verified; a current fund-level audited spending breakdown was not established in this review.
Nepal government relief: the Prime Minister Disaster Relief Fund — Tier 1 and 26 August 2026 government appeal — Tier 1 establish the government channel and flood context. The portal offers credit-card giving. This verifies the route; it does not independently reconcile government spending with household receipts.
Concerns that affect a donation decision
GiveDirectly: its 2025 risk report — Tier 2 reports 0.27% known fraud losses overall and 2.98% leakage in a remote DRC program. It describes changes to payment timing and verification. Those figures are organization-reported and program-specific. Publishing a loss is useful transparency, not evidence that losses cannot recur.
WaterAid America: the FY2023 audit — Tier 2 found an untimely single-audit submission caused by mismatches between Colombia's financial records and U.S. records. Its FY2025 audit — Tier 2, summary on printed page 22, reports no significant deficiencies, material weaknesses or reportable findings. It also says WaterAid did not qualify as a low-risk auditee. The old issue should neither be hidden nor described as an unresolved current finding without evidence.
Mental Health America: its 2025 report — Tier 2 identifies an Otsuka America Pharmaceutical partnership. This is a disclosed funding relationship relevant to assessing advocacy independence; it is not, by itself, evidence of fraud.
Human Rights Watch: its 2020 statement — Tier 2 acknowledges accepting a 2012 donation restricted against funding LGBT work in the Middle East and North Africa, and says it returned the full donation. This is a documented governance failure and response, not a claim about every current donor.
UNRWA: the UN's August 2024 investigation statement — Tier 1 distinguishes nine possible-involvement cases, nine insufficient-evidence cases and one no-evidence case. It should not be reduced to either complete exoneration or an accusation against all staff.
Rainforest Trust and Wildlife Conservation Network: read Rainforest Trust's accountability explanation — Tier 2 and WCN's financial disclosures — Tier 2 alongside the audited expenses. Claims that all of a designated gift reaches conservation depend on other money covering costs. They do not make salaries, administration, fundraising or payment processing disappear.
CPJ: its 24 September 2026 review — Tier 2 removed, reinstated and reclassified entries in its journalist-death database. This is relevant to judging its research. It is not evidence that donations were stolen.
GlobalGiving: its Community Aid Fund reports — Tier 2 name supported organizations and describe grant rounds. Its vetting process — Tier 2 checks legal status, governance and finances. The fee schedule — Tier 2 lists 12% support plus 3% processing for managed funds; direct project rates differ. The fund allocates grants, and recipients have their own costs. Intermediary vetting does not replace a forensic audit of each grantee.
Donation-route details
- WFP's eight additional crisis pages and their linked donation entry pages loaded. Most linked forms default to regular giving. DRC's link goes to a general WFP fund. No country restriction was inferred from a campaign code.
- UNICEF appeal buttons can redirect to regional donation sites. The hub keeps the relevant appeal and warns that the final fund may be general.
- Oceana's cheque instructions loaded. Its online processor did not load reliably in the checks, so no unverified processor URL was added to the hub.
- SolarAid's official shop distinguishes merchandise processed by SunnyMoney Global Limited from donations made directly to SolarAid. The linked item is a donation, not a solar-lamp purchase. The regulator's late-filing notice remains disclosed.
- Some sites blocked the command-line fetch but loaded through the web reader. Those are recorded separately from direct HTTP checks. A successful response containing only an error page was not accepted as verification.
- No organization was contacted for a private assurance about telemarketing. Public Form 990 disclosures were read where noted; no unverified direct Tier 3 fundraiser was labelled cleared. The local-work option is the assessed GlobalGiving intermediary and its published fund reports.
Downloaded public source material and link-check records are kept in the local research folder. The checks are dated evidence, not permanent approval.