Fwiw, there's some psychological research on "overhead bias" or "overhead aversion" - donors' tendency to focus on overhead when deciding where to donate - and how to overcome it; e.g. this Science paper and this paper by Lucius Caviola et al. Depending on how you conceive of this article, you could mention that.
You could also mention that overhead bias has two kinds of negative effects. First, it directly reduces the effectiveness of donations, since it means that donors chose a criterion that doesn't track cost-effectiveness well. Second, it incentivises charities to reduce spending on overhead, which in turn may decrease their effectiveness (cf. The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle).
I'm a bit unsure what Charity Navigator's current stance on overhead is. I think that they gradually may have changed their views (see, e.g. this article, and this one on their acquisition of Impact Matters). It could be good to look into that further. And potentially it would be good to have a newer reference than from 2016.
I'm a bit unsure what Charity Navigator's current stance on overhead is. I think that they gradually may have changed their views (see, e.g. this article, and this one on their acquisition of Impact Matters). It could be good to look into that further. And potentially it would be good to have a newer reference than from 2016.
I tried to link to this page, but think I just linked to the page in the wrong way in the way that you edit tags/wikis (this is the first time I've done it!). Not sure why the link has just been replaced with a reference to 2016.
I only skimmed the page, but looks to me like overheads is still a key part. High "Program Expense Percentage" is good, high "Administrative Expense Percentage" and "Fundraising Expense Percentage" are bad.
Fwiw, there's some psychological research on "overhead bias" or "overhead aversion" - donors' tendency to focus on overhead when deciding where to donate - and how to overcome it; e.g. this Science paper and this paper by Lucius Caviola et al. Depending on how you conceive of this article, you could mention that.
You could also mention that overhead bias has two kinds of negative effects. First, it directly reduces the effectiveness of donations, since it means that donors chose a criterion that doesn't track cost-effectiveness well. Second, it incentivises charities to reduce spending on overhead, which in turn may decrease their effectiveness (cf. The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle).
I'm a bit unsure what Charity Navigator's current stance on overhead is. I think that they gradually may have changed their views (see, e.g. this article, and this one on their acquisition of Impact Matters). It could be good to look into that further. And potentially it would be good to have a newer reference than from 2016.
I tried to link to this page, but think I just linked to the page in the wrong way in the way that you edit tags/wikis (this is the first time I've done it!). Not sure why the link has just been replaced with a reference to 2016.
I only skimmed the page, but looks to me like overheads is still a key part. High "Program Expense Percentage" is good, high "Administrative Expense Percentage" and "Fundraising Expense Percentage" are bad.