We first look at all nonprofit organizations operating in the given region that have at least one program targeting the fund's cause. Our team assesses each organization's level of data transparency and focuses on ones that meet a minimum threshold of data disclosure. We then analyze program operations and outcomes data from a combination of public sources like IRS filings and directly from the nonprofits to determine the breadth, depth, and evidence of each organization's impact. Based on the strategy we've designed for the fund, we rank all the nonprofits we've analyzed and choose the top 4.

Our funds are regionally focused. We believe that local nonprofits are more in touch with the challenges that face each individual community and benefit more from our support than larger, brand-name organizations would.

When we analyze nonprofits, we focus on evaluating the relative breadth, depth, and evidence of their impact. We assign scores on a scale of 1-5 for each category. We then translate a nonprofit's numerical score in each category to High/Med/Low based on how it compares relative to all other nonprofits for that cause, region, and output category. For more details, please refer to our fund strategy and methodology.

• Breadth of impact is the estimated total number of outputs delivered (e.g. number of individuals served).
• Depth of impact is our evaluation of how "important" an organization's specific outputs are towards solving the overall issue. For a given cause, we assign impact weights to every category of output based on academic research and policy reports. We then calculate a nonprofit's depth score by taking a weighted average of the impact weights assigned to the outputs being delivered by that nonprofit. The higher this score, the more the nonprofit is investing in outputs that we believe have the best chance of addressing the given cause. You can find more details on depth of impact and impact weights depth of impact and impact weights.
• Evidence of impact is a qualitative evaluation of how strongly a nonprofit supports its stated outputs delivered with additional data and/or research. We examine and assign evidence scores as follows:Low - Nonprofit does not report individuals served and instead states a different overall quantity of outputs or activities.Med - Nonprofit reports individuals served but no additional details on further outcomes.High - Nonprofit reports individuals served and provides additional details on outcomes achieved to help those individuals progress in service of the cause.
• Nonprofit weight is simply the percentage of the overall fund that a particular nonprofit comprises. When you donate to the fund, the weight of a nonprofit determines what percentage of your donation goes to that nonprofit. We determine fund weights by dividing the final overall score of each nonprofit in the fund (an internal calculation based on the breadth, depth, and evidence scores) divided by the sum of all the final overall scores of all the nonprofits in the fund.

For each of our managed funds, we have a Fund Manager who works with our team of researchers and writers to design, report on, and improve the fund. They steer the fund's initial focus and strategy, determine the types of research and reports to create, and assess the performance of the fund to optimize it over time. The Fund Manager sends monthly reports to subscribers of the fund. These reports provide detailed information on how donations are being utilized, the estimated impact being achieved, and the stories of the individuals or communities benefiting from the support. Our writers also create weekly updates with relevant news about the cause, updates from the nonprofits in the fund, and more.

We currently update fund strategies on a quarterly basis. This includes assessing the performance of the fund, refreshing our evaluations of nonprofits, and introducing any new or relevant research into our analysis of social causes and outputs. This process can result in one or more of the nonprofits in a managed fund changing based on latest data and analysis.

We also regularly monitor the nonprofits in a fund to make ad-hoc changes, if necessary. For example, If a nonprofit is no longer in good standing, we will replace them with the next highest scoring organization in our database.

100% of the money you donate will go directly to the nonprofits in this fund. The only fee we have is a standard 3% credit card processing fee imposed by our payments provider to cover the cost of the transaction. We do give you the option to add a tip to your donations, which goes to Impact Lab and helps us cover costs to maintain our platform, conduct research and analysis, and publish high-quality content.