{ "name": "tools", "description": "Every tool, with status.", "license": "CC BY 4.0. Cite “Charitology (charitology.org)”.", "generated": "2026-10-26", "data": [ { "id": "ai-charitologist", "path": "/tools/ai-charitologist/", "title": "AI Charitologist", "group": "For everyone", "order": 1, "summary": "Ask any question about giving and get answers drawn only from what Charitology has published, grouped by where they come from, with every passage linked.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live as retrieval over the Record. The generative layer is designed and will cite the Record for every sentence.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession", "measurement-gap" ], "help": [ "Report a question it answered badly in an issue labeled question.", "Write the missing entry when it says the Record has no answer.", "Help build the generative layer to the rules below." ], "related": [ "/search/", "/record/encyclopedia/", "/open-problems/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works today\n\nYour question is matched against the site’s search index, and matching passages come back grouped by section, each linked to its page. Nothing is generated. The passages can still contain errors or unreviewed claims, so follow their evidence labels and sources. When few passages match, the tool asks you to help fill the gap.\n\nThe search index is built when the site is built and runs in your browser. Your question isn’t sent anywhere.\n\n## The generative layer (designed)\n\nA language model will eventually write short answers on top of these passages. It will be held to rules stricter than most AI systems:\n\n1. **Answer only from the Record.** No outside knowledge, and no guessing.\n2. **Cite every sentence** with a link to the passage it came from.\n3. **Say “unknown” when it is unknown**, and point to the open problem.\n4. **Keep the evidence labels**: a hypothesis is never presented as established.\n5. **No ratings or recommendations of named charities.**\n\nUntil a model can meet those rules reliably, and that has been tested in public, the tool stays retrieval-only.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t financial, legal or tax advice, and it isn’t a recommendation to give to any organization." }, { "id": "browser-extension", "path": "/tools/browser-extension/", "title": "Browser Extension", "group": "For donors", "order": 4, "summary": "Puts the Giver’s Checklist on donation pages and one click away everywhere else, with a lookup in the open charity registries. Collects nothing.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live as a developer install for Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Store packages, listing copy and privacy documentation are prepared; store submission and approval are pending.", "conditions": [ "story-bias", "overhead-myth", "missing-feedback-loop" ], "help": [ "Test it on donation sites and report problems in an issue labeled extension.", "Help prepare the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Add-ons listings.", "Propose a donation site to support, with its fundraiser URL pattern." ], "related": [ "/method/#checklist", "/tools/charity-lookup/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## Why an extension\n\nThe extension brings three questions to a donation page: symptom or source, what would happen anyway, and how anyone would know if it worked. It offers a pause to think about the system behind a gift, including the debated effects described in [the Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/).\n\n## Privacy by construction\n\nThe extension reads the page title to suggest a lookup, and the lookup opens only when you click. The name travels after `#q=` in the address, which stays in your browser instead of entering the page request. It makes no background network requests, has no analytics and stores one thing: the sites where you chose to hide the card. Its permissions are `activeTab`, which lets the popup read the active tab when you click the icon, and `storage`. Read the [privacy notice](/tools/browser-extension/privacy/) or inspect the [source](https://github.com/theguysaccount/charitology/tree/main/extension).\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt doesn’t rate charities or fundraisers. The card can be dismissed, and it does not alter the donation form or handle money." }, { "id": "charitology-wrapped", "path": "/tools/charitology-wrapped/", "title": "Charitology Wrapped", "group": "For donors", "order": 8, "summary": "Turn a year of logged gifts into a card you can share, showing where your giving acted and the kind of giver it makes you, with or without the dollar amounts.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "prestige-economy", "story-bias" ], "help": [ "Propose a new archetype, or warmer wording for one, in an issue. The text lives in src/lib/client/archetype.ts.", "Share your card, then tell us in a discussion whether it started a conversation. That is early evidence for Open Problem 15.", "Design a second card layout that works at 1080 × 1350 and propose it in a pull request." ], "related": [ "/tools/giving-dashboard/", "/open-problems/the-status-flip/", "/diagnosis/prestige-economy/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nWrapped reads the gifts you log in the [Giving Dashboard](/tools/giving-dashboard/). Pick a year and it builds a card: your total, how many organizations you gave to, your top cause, your mix across the five depth levels, your source share and a giving archetype. Download the card as a 1080 × 1350 image, sized for phone screens and social posts, or copy a plain-text summary. With no gifts logged, you can try it on fictional sample data.\n\n**Hide dollar amounts** swaps every amount for shares and counts. A card about where your giving acted doesn’t need to say how much it was.\n\nThe card is a small experiment toward [Open Problem 15, the Status Flip](/open-problems/the-status-flip/). Charitology’s working hypothesis, [the Prestige Economy](/diagnosis/prestige-economy/), is that status in giving follows a gift’s size and visibility rather than what it achieved. Can a card that shows *how* you gave, across many needs rather than one story, become something people are proud to post? Nobody has tested that yet. The card also leads with a mix of causes and depths instead of a single face, a gentle push against [the Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/).\n\n## The archetypes\n\nYour archetype comes from your depth mix, measured in dollars. When one level carries at least 40 percent of your giving and leads the next level by at least five points, it names you:\n\n| Most of your giving at | Your archetype |\n| --- | --- |\n| Relief | The First Responder |\n| Repair | The Rebuilder |\n| Prevention | The Protector |\n| Structure | The Architect |\n| Source | The Root-Seeker |\n\nWhen no level leads like that, you are the Balancer. Each archetype comes with one line about what that kind of giving does and one next frontier, a suggestion for something to try next year. No archetype is better than another. Depth describes where a gift acts. It doesn’t grade it, and every level is needed.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a measure of impact. The card shows where your money went and where you placed each gift on the depth scale, not what the gifts achieved. Archetypes are labels for a mix, not judgments of a person. The card is drawn in your browser, and nothing is uploaded unless you share the image yourself." }, { "id": "charity-lookup", "path": "/tools/charity-lookup/", "title": "Charity Lookup", "group": "For donors", "order": 3, "summary": "Search the Charitology Charity Index by name, see where on the chain from symptom to source a charity’s work is thought to act, and open the public registries in one click.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "overhead-myth", "missing-feedback-loop" ], "help": [ "Add a charity to the Charity Index with a pull request to src/content/charities/ that cites the sources for its depth hypothesis.", "Challenge a depth hypothesis in an issue tagged red-team, with the evidence that points to a different level.", "Suggest another open registry for the lookup in src/data/ecosystem.json." ], "related": [ "/tools/due-diligence-checklist/", "/diagnosis/overhead-myth/", "/record/myths/low-overhead-means-a-good-charity/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Search for tax exempt organizations", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026, "note": "What Tax Exempt Organization Search covers, including Pub. 78 data and the automatic revocation list." }, { "title": "Nonprofit Explorer", "url": "https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/", "publisher": "ProPublica", "year": 2026, "note": "A living database, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "WHOFUNDS open grant graph", "url": "https://theguysaccount.github.io/whofunds-open-grant-graph/", "publisher": "WHOFUNDS", "year": 2026, "note": "Form 990-PF grants for tax year 2023, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "Charity Impact Media", "url": "https://theguysaccount.github.io/charity-impact-media/", "publisher": "Charity Impact Media", "year": 2026, "note": "Accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "Systemic Altruism charity tracker", "url": "https://charities.systemicaltruism.com/", "publisher": "Systemic Altruism", "year": 2026, "note": "A beta directory, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "3 Major Charity Groups Ask Donors to Stop Focusing on Overhead Costs", "url": "https://www.philanthropy.com/news/3-major-charity-groups-ask-donors-to-stop-focusing-on-overhead-costs/", "publisher": "The Chronicle of Philanthropy", "year": 2013 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nType a charity’s name, or arrive from the Charitology browser extension, which opens this page with the name already filled in. The lookup searches the [Charity Index](/record/charity-index/) in your browser and shows each match with its depth hypothesis.\n\nBelow the matches are five open registries, always shown, because the Charity Index is young and the public record is large:\n\n- **ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer** has millions of annual returns filed by U.S. tax-exempt organizations.\n- **WHOFUNDS** records what U.S. private foundations reported paying on Form 990-PF, with an estimate of which registered organization each payee is.\n- **Charity Impact Media** shows where the money goes, from Form 990, for U.S. public charities with $10 million or more in revenue. It has no ratings.\n- **The Systemic Altruism tracker** is a beta directory of charities working on structural change, with a searchable registry of IRS-listed charities.\n- **IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search** is the official record of whether an organization can receive tax-deductible gifts and whether its exemption was automatically revoked.\n\nProPublica and WHOFUNDS open with your search already run. The other three open their home pages, where you can search. The name you type stays in your browser until you click one of them.\n\n## Depth is a hypothesis, not a grade\n\nEach Charity Index entry carries a depth hypothesis: Charitology’s working description of where the charity’s work acts on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), from relief to source. It describes. It never grades, and every level is needed: a food bank and a policy campaign can both be doing exactly what the world needs from them. The hypothesis is labeled as one, its sources are in the entry, and anyone can challenge it with the link on each match.\n\nThe lookup deliberately shows no overhead ratio. In 2013 the leaders of GuideStar, Charity Navigator and the BBB Wise Giving Alliance told donors that overhead is a poor measure of a charity’s performance. That is [the Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/). What a charity achieves rarely reaches its donors at all, which is [the Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/). The lookup can’t close that loop. It can send you to the evidence that exists and to the questions in the [Giver’s Checklist](/method/#checklist).\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a rating, a ranking or a recommendation, and a charity missing from the Charity Index tells you nothing about it. The registries are run by other organizations, and Charitology doesn’t control or vouch for what they show. For a fuller check of one organization, use the [Due Diligence Checklist](/tools/due-diligence-checklist/)." }, { "id": "charity-os", "path": "/tools/charity-os/", "title": "Charity OS", "group": "For nonprofits and funders", "order": 20, "summary": "Keep your mission, programs, grant pipeline, tasks and evidence in a private browser workspace, with clear owners and next steps.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A working browser workspace. Records stay on this device; export JSON to keep a backup or move them.", "conditions": [ "fragmentation", "missing-feedback-loop", "measurement-gap", "missing-voice" ], "help": [ "Try a real program plan using program-level records, and report where the workflow gets in your way.", "Propose a clearer way to connect what a team does with what the people affected say changed.", "Test a JSON export in another browser and report any field that does not carry over." ], "related": [ "/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/", "/tools/grant-evaluator/", "/tools/due-diligence-checklist/", "/record/encyclopedia/theory-of-change/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## Start with the work\n\nWrite down your mission and the community's role in shaping it. Add each program or project with its intended change, owner, budget, spending and target date. Depth is an optional working description, from relief to source. It does not grade the work, and unknown can stay unknown.\n\nThe grant pipeline keeps opportunities, stages, amounts, deadlines and next steps together. Link a grant to a project, assign an owner, then turn the next step into a task. The dashboard separates pending requests, awards and project budgets so the same money is not quietly counted twice.\n\n## Keep the feedback loop visible\n\nThe evidence log records what was observed, when, in what units and with what support. It can hold outputs, outcomes, no change and harms. Leave the value blank when it is unknown; zero means an observed zero. Use the notes and source link to explain the method and its limits. A change after a program is not by itself proof that the program caused it. The [Impact Measurement Toolkit](/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/) helps make that distinction.\n\nEvery record can be edited or deleted. Deleting a project keeps its grants, tasks and observations without a project link. Undo restores the previous workspace until the next change or reload. Search, project filters and status filters help find what needs attention.\n\n## Keep a copy\n\nRecords are saved only in this browser. This version has no shared accounts or team synchronization. Owners are labels for organizing the work, not invitations or notifications. It does not send reminders or submit grant applications.\n\nExport **JSON** to keep all fields and restore the workspace on this or another device. Import validates the whole file and shows a preview before replacing anything. **CSV** gives you the records for a spreadsheet; use JSON for a full restore. The fictional example is clearly marked and replaces your current workspace only after confirmation when there is existing work.\n\nIf browser storage is blocked or full, the workspace keeps working on the open page and shows a notice to export before leaving. Clearing browser data removes the saved copy. Use program-level records, and keep private case files in the systems your organization uses for them." }, { "id": "compare-tool", "path": "/tools/compare-tool/", "title": "Compare Tool", "group": "For donors", "order": 6, "summary": "Put two or three interventions side by side on depth, evidence, durability, feedback, who steers and cost, and see exactly where they differ. There is no overall score, because the trade-offs are yours to weigh.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "single-lens", "overhead-myth" ], "help": [ "Add an intervention to the database with a pull request to src/content/interventions/, so people can compare it.", "Challenge a depth, evidence, feedback or durability rating on an existing intervention with a sourced pull request.", "Suggest an attribute the comparison is missing, with the evidence that would fill it, in an issue tagged tools." ], "related": [ "/tools/impact-calculator/", "/tools/values-compass/", "/diagnosis/single-lens/", "/diagnosis/overhead-myth/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nChoose two or three interventions from the [Intervention Database](/record/interventions/). The tool lines them up on the same attributes the database records for every entry:\n\n- **Depth:** where the work acts, from relief to source, on the [depth scale](/record/encyclopedia/symptoms-and-sources/)\n- **Evidence:** how strong the published evidence is\n- **Mechanism:** how it works, in words\n- **Time to effect** and **durability:** how soon results appear and how long they last\n- **Feedback:** how clearly results travel back to the people steering the work\n- **Who steers:** whether the work is community-led, co-designed or top-down\n- **Cost data:** a published cost per outcome, if one exists\n- **Causes** and **related conditions** from the [Diagnosis](/diagnosis/)\n\nEvery rated row is marked “Differs” or “Same”, so you can see at a glance where the choice actually lies, and you can hide the rows that match. Each name links to its full entry and sources. On a phone the comparison stacks by attribute, so the values you are comparing stay next to each other.\n\n## Why there is no score\n\nAdding the rows into one number would mean deciding for you how much durability is worth against evidence, or community control against speed. Those are value judgments, and reasonable people make them differently. A single score would hide that choice inside a formula. Seeing good through one framework without noticing is [the Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/), and a ranking would invite it.\n\nDepth in particular is not a grade. Relief, repair, prevention, structure and source work are all needed. The comparison shows where each intervention acts so you can choose your mix on purpose.\n\nThere is no overhead column. How much of its budget a charity spends on staff and systems says little about what the work achieves, which is [the Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/).\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt compares interventions, which are kinds of work, not charities. It doesn’t rate any organization. Cost figures appear only where the database has a published, sourced estimate, and figures that count different outcomes can’t be compared directly. Unknown values are shown as unknown.\n\nYour selections live in the page address, so a share link reproduces the same comparison. Nothing is sent to a server." }, { "id": "cost-effectiveness-model-kit", "path": "/tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/", "title": "Cost-Effectiveness Model Kit", "group": "For nonprofits and funders", "order": 2, "summary": "Build a cost-per-outcome model with a low, likely and high value for every input, run 5,000 simulated draws in your browser, and see the range of results and which inputs drive them.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "measurement-gap", "overhead-myth" ], "help": [ "Share a model for a type of program, with a source for every low, likely and high value, in an issue tagged tools.", "Propose a simple way to let inputs move together, such as cost and people reached, and explain how to check it.", "Check the math in src/lib/client/models.ts and src/lib/client/montecarlo.ts and report anything wrong." ], "related": [ "/tools/impact-calculator/", "/tools/grant-evaluator/", "/open-problems/measuring-the-source/", "/open-problems/discounting-the-future/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nA cost-effectiveness model asks one question: how much does each unit of good cost? The kit breaks that question into parts you can reason about, and asks for a low, likely and high value for each:\n\n- total program cost\n- people reached\n- the chance the program works as intended\n- the effect per person, per year, in an outcome unit you name\n- how many years the effect lasts\n- the share of the outcome that would have happened anyway\n\nOne more input, the annual discount rate, takes a single value.\n\nThe kit then runs the model 5,000 times. Each run, or draw, picks every input at random between its low and high values, most often near likely. The spread of the 5,000 answers shows how uncertain the result is, given what you entered.\n\nYou can save models in your browser, load them again, download the inputs and results as a CSV file, or start from a clearly fictional example.\n\n## The method\n\n**The formula.** Cost per outcome = total cost ÷ (people reached × chance it works × effect per person per year × discounted years × the share that would not have happened anyway).\n\n**Discounting.** The first year of effect counts in full. Each later year counts 1 ÷ (1 + rate) as much as the one before, so at 4% the second year counts about 96% as much as the first. A rate of 0 counts every year the same. Whether future outcomes should count less at all is [Open Problem 13, Discounting the Future](/open-problems/discounting-the-future/).\n\n**The draws.** Each input follows a triangular distribution: it never falls below low or above high, and it is most likely near likely. Draws come from a seeded random number generator, so the same inputs and seed always give exactly the same results, and anyone can reproduce your numbers. Changing the seed shows how much the results move by chance alone.\n\n**The outputs.** The headline is the median cost per outcome, the middle of the 5,000 draws, with a 90% interval: 90% of draws fall between its two ends. The histogram shows how the draws spread. The sensitivity chart takes one input at a time from its low to its high value, with every other input at likely, and shows how far the cost per outcome moves. The longest bar is the input where better evidence would help most.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a measurement. The model can only be as good as its inputs, and the interval only reflects the uncertainty you put in. Ranges that are too narrow give results that look surer than they are.\n\nIt makes simplifications you should know about. Inputs are drawn independently, though in real programs some move together. The chance of working is treated as a scaling factor, so the result is an expected value that hides the real chance of achieving nothing. It counts one outcome, so side effects, harms and spillovers to other people are left out.\n\nA cost per outcome also isn’t the whole picture. Overhead ratios tell you even less, which is [the Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/), but cost-effectiveness favors what can be counted. Work at the source end of the depth scale rarely fits a model like this one. That is [the Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) at its widest, and [Open Problem 3, Measuring the Source](/open-problems/measuring-the-source/)." }, { "id": "disaster-response-guide", "path": "/tools/disaster-response-guide/", "title": "Disaster Response Guide", "group": "For donors", "order": 11, "summary": "What responders and researchers advise about giving after a disaster, a planner that splits one gift across relief, recovery and preparedness, and a calendar reminder to give again when the news has moved on.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "story-bias", "restriction-reflex", "short-horizon" ], "help": [ "Challenge a planner default or improve a point with a pull request to src/data/disaster-guide.json that cites a source.", "Add guidance from responders outside the United States, where the registries and agencies differ.", "Find a sourced estimate of how much disaster giving arrives in the first weeks compared with later, and propose it as a new point." ], "related": [ "/tools/charity-lookup/", "/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/", "/diagnosis/story-bias/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Volunteer and Donate", "url": "https://www.fema.gov/disaster/recover/volunteer-donate", "publisher": "Federal Emergency Management Agency", "year": 2026 }, { "title": "Cash: The king for disaster donations", "url": "https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/cash-the-king-for-disaster-donations/", "publisher": "Patricia McIlreavy, Center for Disaster Philanthropy", "year": 2023 }, { "title": "When In-Kind Donations Are Not Kind", "url": "https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/kind-donations-not-kind/", "publisher": "Regine A. Webster, Center for Disaster Philanthropy", "year": 2017 }, { "title": "Disaster Recovery", "url": "https://disasterphilanthropy.org/cdp-resource/disaster-recovery/", "publisher": "Center for Disaster Philanthropy", "year": 2026, "note": "Undated resource page, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "From relief to recovery: A strategic approach to disaster philanthropy", "url": "https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/from-relief-to-recovery-a-strategic-approach-to-disaster-philanthropy/", "publisher": "Patricia McIlreavy, Center for Disaster Philanthropy", "year": 2024 }, { "title": "New Center for Disaster Philanthropy Report: Disaster Giving Declined Slightly in 2023, But Support for Long-Term Recovery and Resilience Efforts Increased", "url": "https://disasterphilanthropy.org/press/new-center-for-disaster-philanthropy-report-disaster-giving-declined-slightly-in-2023-but-support-for-long-term-recovery-and-resilience-efforts-increased/", "publisher": "Center for Disaster Philanthropy", "year": 2025, "note": "Source of the 12.7% (recovery) and 6% (resilience, risk reduction and mitigation) shares of 2023 disaster giving." }, { "title": "Help the people affected by flooding in Texas — not a scammer", "url": "https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2025/07/help-people-affected-flooding-texas-not-scammer", "publisher": "Federal Trade Commission", "year": 2025 }, { "title": "Donating Through Crowdfunding and Fundraising Platforms", "url": "https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/donating-through-crowdfunding-social-media-and-fundraising-platforms", "publisher": "Federal Trade Commission", "year": 2025 }, { "title": "Before Giving to a Charity", "url": "https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/giving-charity", "publisher": "Federal Trade Commission", "year": 2025 }, { "title": "Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves: 2019 Report", "url": "https://nibs.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/mitigationsaves2019_complete.pdf", "publisher": "National Institute of Building Sciences", "year": 2019 }, { "title": "Protecting Against Natural Disasters: NIBS Unveils New Report on Mitigation", "url": "https://nibs.org/protecting-against-natural-disasters-nibs-unveils-new-report-on-mitigation/", "publisher": "National Institute of Building Sciences", "year": 2020, "note": "Source of the $6 benefit for every $1 of federally funded mitigation grants." }, { "title": "One year after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster", "url": "https://www.msf.org/one-year-after-indian-ocean-tsunami-disaster", "publisher": "Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)", "year": 2005 }, { "title": "The Grand Bargain – A shared commitment to better serve people in need", "url": "https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/the-grand-bargain-a-shared-commitment-to-better-serve-people-in-need/", "publisher": "ALNAP, hosting the agreement signed at the World Humanitarian Summit", "year": 2016 }, { "title": "News Droughts, News Floods, and U.S. Disaster Relief", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.122.2.693", "publisher": "Thomas Eisensee and David Strömberg, Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(2)", "year": 2007 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nThe guide opens with six points drawn from disaster responders, regulators and researchers, each with its sources. Then the planner splits one amount across three phases: **relief now**, **recovery later** and **preparedness** for the next disaster. Move any slider and the other two rebalance, so the total stays at 100%. The reminder makes a calendar file for a date you choose, six months out unless you change it, so the part of your gift meant for recovery has a moment to happen. The file is built in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.\n\n## Why the planner splits by phase\n\nThe three phases sit at different depths on the [depth scale](/method/#depth): relief meets the need today, recovery repairs what was lost, and preparedness prevents the next disaster from hurting as much. All three are needed.\n\nDisaster giving follows attention. Thomas Eisensee and David Strömberg found that U.S. government disaster relief depended partly on whether other news crowded a disaster out of the headlines. That is [the Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/). Gifts surge in the first days, but recovery can take years, which is [the Short Horizon](/diagnosis/short-horizon/). In 2023, according to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and Candid, reconstruction and recovery received 12.7% of tracked disaster giving and resilience, risk reduction and mitigation received 6%.\n\nThe default split is 50% relief, 30% recovery and 20% preparedness. It is an editorial starting point, not a finding: it puts a larger share toward recovery than disaster giving does today and keeps a real share for preparedness, so no phase is left out. Change it to fit what you know. If responders say their needs are met, give flexibly rather than to one disaster, which is [the Restriction Reflex](/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/) in reverse.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a recommendation of any organization, and it doesn’t know the details of a particular disaster. Responders on the ground do, so follow their requests when they differ from the defaults. The guidance comes mostly from U.S. sources, and the scam checks point to U.S. registries. Calendar apps treat reminder files differently, so check that the event and its alert appear where you expect." }, { "id": "due-diligence-checklist", "path": "/tools/due-diligence-checklist/", "title": "Due Diligence Checklist", "group": "For nonprofits and funders", "order": 4, "summary": "Check an organization against 25 questions on legitimacy, money, results, learning, its place in the system and red flags. Unknowns become questions to ask, and the report downloads as Markdown.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "overhead-myth", "silence-about-failure", "measurement-gap", "missing-voice" ], "help": [ "Improve a question or add a source with a pull request to src/data/due-diligence.json.", "Suggest a public registry that answers one of the questions, for src/data/ecosystem.json.", "Translate the checklist for donors and funders outside the United States, where the registries are different." ], "related": [ "/tools/charity-lookup/", "/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/", "/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Search for tax exempt organizations", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026 }, { "title": "Automatic revocation of exemption", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/automatic-revocation-of-exemption", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026 }, { "title": "Churches, integrated auxiliaries and conventions or associations of churches", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-integrated-auxiliaries-and-conventions-or-associations-of-churches", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026, "note": "Churches that meet section 501(c)(3) are tax-exempt without applying for recognition." }, { "title": "Exempt organizations general issues: Eligible charitable donees", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-general-issues-eligible-charitable-donees", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026, "note": "Subordinates under a group ruling aren’t listed separately." }, { "title": "Annual exempt organization return: who must file", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/annual-exempt-organization-return-who-must-file", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026 }, { "title": "Public disclosure and availability of exempt organizations returns and applications: Documents subject to public disclosure", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/public-disclosure-and-availability-of-exempt-organizations-returns-and-applications-documents-subject-to-public-disclosure", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026 }, { "title": "Instructions for Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (2025)", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i990", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2025, "note": "Part III (program accomplishments), Part VI (governance), Part VII (compensation), Part IX (functional expenses) and Part XII (financial statements)." }, { "title": "Before Giving to a Charity", "url": "https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/giving-charity", "publisher": "Federal Trade Commission", "year": 2025 }, { "title": "National Association of State Charity Officials", "url": "https://www.nasconet.org/", "publisher": "NASCO", "year": 2026, "note": "Registration and filing requirements differ from state to state. Accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "State Government", "url": "https://www.nasconet.org/resources/state-government/", "publisher": "National Association of State Charity Officials", "year": 2026, "note": "Directory of state charity offices, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "3 Major Charity Groups Ask Donors to Stop Focusing on Overhead Costs", "url": "https://www.philanthropy.com/news/3-major-charity-groups-ask-donors-to-stop-focusing-on-overhead-costs/", "publisher": "The Chronicle of Philanthropy", "year": 2013 }, { "title": "The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle", "url": "https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_nonprofit_starvation_cycle", "publisher": "Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard, Stanford Social Innovation Review", "year": 2009 }, { "title": "Charity Impact Media", "url": "https://theguysaccount.github.io/charity-impact-media/", "publisher": "Charity Impact Media", "year": 2026, "note": "Accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "WHOFUNDS open grant graph", "url": "https://theguysaccount.github.io/whofunds-open-grant-graph/", "publisher": "WHOFUNDS", "year": 2026, "note": "Accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "Our Mistakes", "url": "https://www.givewell.org/about/our-mistakes", "publisher": "GiveWell", "year": 2026, "note": "A running list, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "2017 Failure Report", "url": "https://www.ewb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/EWB_FAILURE-REPORT_EN_03-08-2018-pages.pdf", "publisher": "Engineers Without Borders Canada", "year": 2018 }, { "title": "Realizing the Promise of High-Quality Feedback", "url": "https://feedbacklabs.org/news-and-insights/realizing-the-promise-of-high-quality-feedback/", "publisher": "Juan Clavijo and Melinda Tuan, Feedback Labs", "year": 2021 }, { "title": "Introduction to randomized evaluations", "url": "https://www.povertyactionlab.org/resource/introduction-randomized-evaluations", "publisher": "Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)", "year": 2023 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nPick an organization, or start a new one, and work through the questions in any order. Each question says why it matters and, where a public record can answer it, how to check. Mark each one **yes**, **no**, **unknown** or **not applicable**, and add a note if you like. The checklist keeps a separate copy for every organization you check, saved only in this browser.\n\nThe summary counts answers by status. Anything marked unknown is listed as a question to ask the organization, and the whole checklist downloads as a Markdown report you can share, edit or keep.\n\nIf you came from the [Charity Lookup](/tools/charity-lookup/), the organization’s name is already filled in. Links to ProPublica and WHOFUNDS then open with that name searched, which sends it to those sites when you click.\n\n## Six groups of questions\n\n**Legitimacy** asks whether the organization is what it says it is: recognized by the IRS, still filing, registered where your state requires it, and governed by people who can check it. **Money** asks what the spending buys and who else pays, and deliberately doesn’t ask for an overhead ratio, because a low one tells you little about results. That is [the Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/). **Results** asks for outcomes, not just outputs, which is [the Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/). **Learning** asks whether the organization publishes what didn’t work and changes because of it, the cure for [the Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/).\n\n**The system lens** asks what no tax form shows: where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) the work acts, what would happen without it, whether it coordinates with others and whether the people it serves have a say. That last one is [the Missing Voice](/diagnosis/missing-voice/). **Red flags** are warning signs the Federal Trade Commission describes. In that group, yes means you saw the sign.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a score, and it never adds answers into a grade. A “no” is information, not a verdict: a young organization may not have an audit yet, and a tiny one may have no reason to publish a failure report. Unknowns are questions, never failures. The registries it points to are U.S. sources run by other organizations, and Charitology doesn’t vouch for what they show. A clean checklist doesn’t prove an organization is effective, and seeing a red flag doesn’t prove a scam. It means stop and check." }, { "id": "forecasting-platform", "path": "/tools/forecasting-platform/", "title": "Forecasting Platform", "group": "For everyone", "order": 3, "summary": "Predict what will happen in the charity system, put a number on it and get scored when the answer arrives. Forecasts are pull requests, so the record is public and permanent.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "missing-feedback-loop", "short-horizon" ], "help": [ "Add a forecast to any open question with a pull request.", "Propose a new question with clear resolution criteria in src/content/forecasts/.", "Resolve a closed question by citing the source that settles it." ], "related": [ "/programs/forecasting-tournaments/", "/open-problems/the-question-of-questions/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nEach question has a precise resolution rule and a closing date. To forecast, add your GitHub handle, a probability and the date to the question’s file. The tool on this page writes the exact lines for you. When a question resolves, every forecaster’s latest forecast is scored.\n\n## Scoring\n\nForecasts are scored with the **Brier score**: the square of the difference between your probability and what happened, where YES counts as 1 and NO as 0. Lower is better. A perfect forecast scores 0. Always saying 50 percent scores 0.25. Being confidently wrong scores close to 1. The leaderboard averages each forecaster’s scores across resolved questions.\n\n## Why forecasting belongs in charitology\n\nCharity has almost no feedback loop: predictions about what will work are rarely written down, so nobody learns whose judgment to trust. Public, scored forecasts are a cheap way to build that track record, a small treatment for [the Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/).\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a betting market. No money changes hands, and no personal data is collected beyond the handle you choose to publish." }, { "id": "gift-giving", "path": "/tools/gift-giving/", "title": "Gift Giving", "group": "For donors", "order": 12, "summary": "Make a card for a donation given in someone’s name, with what the gift does, a personal message and the reasons you chose it. No amount required.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "prestige-economy", "story-bias" ], "help": [ "Design a fourth card style and propose it in a pull request.", "Suggest warmer or clearer wording for the “why this gift” sentences in src/lib/client/giftcard.ts." ], "related": [ "/tools/charitology-wrapped/", "/tools/giving-dashboard/", "/diagnosis/prestige-economy/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nFill in who the gift is for, who it is from, the charity, what the gift does and a personal message. Then tick up to three reasons you chose it. Each reason comes from a question in the Giver’s Checklist and becomes one short sentence on the card. Pick a style, Classic, Modern or Seal, and either download the card as an image or print it. Printing shows the card alone. Your draft is kept in this browser, so you can come back and finish it.\n\n## What the card says, and what it leaves out\n\nThe card leads with what the gift does. There is no amount field. Charitology’s working hypothesis, [the Prestige Economy](/diagnosis/prestige-economy/), is that status in giving follows a gift’s size and visibility more than what it achieved. A card about what a gift does, and why it was chosen, points the admiration at the result.\n\nThe reasons work the same way. “It goes where few other dollars go” or “It answers the size of a need, not just the loudest story” turns a private choice into something the person receiving the card can see. Giving tends to follow faces and stories more than the size of the need, which Charitology calls [the Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/). A card that names the reasons is a small way to show another basis for choosing.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a receipt, and it doesn’t make the donation. Give through the charity first, then make the card. The reasons are yours to choose: the card doesn’t check whether a charity meets them. Nothing you type is sent anywhere." }, { "id": "giving-dashboard", "path": "/tools/giving-dashboard/", "title": "Giving Dashboard", "group": "For donors", "order": 7, "summary": "Keep a private log of your gifts and see where your giving goes, by cause and by depth, from relief for today to work on sources.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "missing-feedback-loop", "symptom-trap" ], "help": [ "Suggest clearer wording for the depth levels in src/data/depth.json, so gifts are easier to place.", "Test the CSV import with an export from your bank or giving platform, and open an issue for anything it can’t read.", "Propose a better one-number summary than source share in an issue that cites Open Problem 1, the Depth Census." ], "related": [ "/tools/charitology-wrapped/", "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "/open-problems/the-depth-census/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nLog each gift with its date, the organization, the amount, a cause and a depth. The dashboard totals your giving, counts the organizations and draws two charts: where your money went by cause, and where it acted on the [depth scale](/record/encyclopedia/symptoms-and-sources/). The year filter narrows everything to one year. You can edit or delete any gift in the table and export the log as JSON or CSV whenever you like. Importing an export you made earlier updates those gifts instead of adding them twice.\n\nNot ready to log your own gifts? **Try sample data** fills the dashboard with clearly fictional gifts, each marked “Sample,” and one click removes them again.\n\n## Depth and source share\n\nDepth asks where a gift acts. Relief meets the need today. Repair restores what was lost. Prevention stops the harm happening to these people. Structure changes the rules that produce it. Source changes what feeds many problems at once. You choose the level for each gift, because you know what you paid for.\n\n**Source share** is the part of your dollars at structure and source, levels 3 and 4. It describes your mix. It isn’t a score: a high number isn’t better and a low one isn’t worse. Relief meets an immediate need, and every level is needed. The point is to see your mix and choose it on purpose, which is the treatment for [the Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/).\n\nCharity sends very little information back to the people who pay for it. Charitology calls that [the Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/). The dashboard can’t tell you what your gifts achieved. It makes the first part of the loop visible: what you gave, where it went and at what depth. [Charitology Wrapped](/tools/charitology-wrapped/) turns the same log into a year-in-review card.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a tax record, so keep the receipts charities send you. It doesn’t rate any organization: the depth of each gift is your own description. Your gifts are stored only in this browser and are never sent anywhere. Clearing your browser’s data deletes them, so export a copy now and then." }, { "id": "grant-evaluator", "path": "/tools/grant-evaluator/", "title": "Grant Evaluator", "group": "For nonprofits and funders", "order": 3, "summary": "Review a proposal on nine dimensions, from source depth to risk of harm, keep unknowns as unknowns, compare your saved proposals side by side and export a review memo.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "symptom-trap", "missing-voice", "restriction-reflex" ], "help": [ "Improve a scoring guide with a pull request to src/lib/client/rubric.ts that explains what the change fixes.", "Test the rubric on past grants whose results are now known, and report in an issue whether the scores tracked what happened.", "Propose a way to decide when a grant should be restricted, under Open Problem 8, the Optimal Restriction." ], "related": [ "/tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/", "/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/", "/diagnosis/missing-voice/", "/open-problems/the-optimal-restriction/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nScore a proposal on nine dimensions:\n\n1. **Source depth:** where the work acts, from relief to source, on the [depth scale](/record/encyclopedia/symptoms-and-sources/)\n2. **Evidence:** how well we know this kind of work does what the proposal claims\n3. **Counterfactual:** whether it would happen anyway without this grant\n4. **Feedback and learning:** whether the applicant measures what changes and changes course\n5. **Voice of the people served:** whether the people the work serves shape what it does\n6. **Cost-effectiveness:** how much good per dollar, compared with other ways to reach the goal\n7. **Durability:** how long results last after the money stops\n8. **Team and track record:** whether this team can do what it proposes\n9. **Risk of harm:** scored so that higher means safer\n\nEach dimension takes a score from 0 to 4, with a one-line guide for every score, or “unknown”. Each has a notes field for your reasoning. You can save as many proposals as you like in your browser, compare them in one table and download a review memo in Markdown or the full record as JSON.\n\n## Unknown stays unknown\n\nA form that demands a number in every box makes a reviewer who doesn’t know guess, and the guess disappears into the total. Here, unknown is an answer.\n\nThe weighted result is a range. Its low end counts every unknown as 0 and its high end counts every unknown as 4. With nothing unknown, the range closes to a single value. This is a missing-data range, not a confidence interval: it shows how much the answer could move once the missing facts are in, not how sure you are of the scores you gave. The unknowns are listed as the questions to ask before deciding.\n\nWeights start equal and you can change them. The same weights apply to every saved proposal, so the comparison table compares like with like.\n\n## Why these dimensions\n\nEach one checks for a condition in the [Diagnosis](/diagnosis/). Source depth makes the choice between relief and source work visible, against [the Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/). Voice of the people served asks who decides, against [the Missing Voice](/diagnosis/missing-voice/). Feedback, counterfactual and cost-effectiveness ask what the money changes, not how it is spent.\n\nDepth describes; it doesn’t grade. Every level of work is needed. Weight depth by how far upstream you want a particular grant to reach.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a rating of any organization, and its scores aren’t measurements. The guides are editorial judgments, published in `src/lib/client/rubric.ts` for anyone to challenge. A rubric can’t replace talking with the applicant and the people they serve.\n\nIt doesn’t tell you how to fund. A strong review is a reason to trust a team’s judgment, and tying the grant to line items and short timelines can undo that. Read [the Restriction Reflex](/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/) before you set conditions. When restriction helps is still [Open Problem 8](/open-problems/the-optimal-restriction/).\n\nEverything stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, and clearing your browser’s storage removes your saved proposals, so download the JSON to keep a copy." }, { "id": "impact-calculator", "path": "/tools/impact-calculator/", "title": "Impact Calculator", "group": "For donors", "order": 5, "summary": "See what a gift could achieve, as a range, for interventions with a published cost per outcome, and see which interventions have no reliable per-dollar estimate at all.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "measurement-gap", "missing-feedback-loop" ], "help": [ "Add a sourced cost field to an intervention in src/content/interventions/, with the outcome it counts, an as-of date and a note on what the range covers.", "Propose a way to put per-dollar numbers on source-level work under Open Problem 3, Measuring the Source.", "Suggest a better way to explain the share that would have happened anyway, in an issue tagged tools." ], "related": [ "/tools/compare-tool/", "/tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/", "/open-problems/measuring-the-source/", "/open-problems/the-counterfactual-problem/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nPick an intervention from the [Intervention Database](/record/interventions/), enter what you want to give and say how much of it you think would have happened anyway. The calculator shows what the gift could pay for as a range, such as “between 0.18 and 0.33 lives saved”, with the source, its date and its caveats next to it.\n\nOnly entries that publish a cost per outcome allow this math. Every other entry is listed as having no reliable per-dollar estimate published. That list is a finding in its own right: it shows [the Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/), the distance between what charities do and what anyone has measured.\n\nIf you have a figure from a source you trust, switch to your own numbers: name the outcome and enter its cost, low and high.\n\n## The math\n\nOnly the share of your gift that would not have happened anyway counts as yours:\n\n- **Counted as yours** = amount × (1 − share that would have happened anyway)\n- **Fewest outcomes** = counted ÷ high cost per outcome\n- **Most outcomes** = counted ÷ low cost per outcome\n\nThe range comes straight from the source’s own low and high costs. The calculator never narrows it, never picks a point inside it and never fills in a number that hasn’t been published.\n\nThe “would have happened anyway” share is what economists call the counterfactual. Your gift might replace money the charity would have raised elsewhere, or work another funder would have paid for. Nobody knows that share for most gifts. Estimating it cheaply is [Open Problem 4, the Counterfactual Problem](/open-problems/the-counterfactual-problem/). Some published cost figures already allow for it, so read the source’s method before you set the slider, or you may count it twice.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a rating of any charity, and it isn’t a promise about your gift. A cost per outcome is an average from a model. It can’t say whether a particular charity can use more money well right now.\n\nIts biggest blind spot is built in. Work near the source end of the [depth scale](/record/encyclopedia/symptoms-and-sources/), such as changing a story, a norm or an institution, rarely has per-dollar numbers, because its effects are diffuse, shared and delayed. A calculator like this one will always favor what can be counted. Treat a missing number as unmeasured, not as small. [Open Problem 3, Measuring the Source](/open-problems/measuring-the-source/) is the work of closing that gap.\n\nEverything runs in your browser. A share link stores your inputs in the link itself, not on any server." }, { "id": "impact-measurement-toolkit", "path": "/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/", "title": "Impact Measurement Toolkit", "group": "For nonprofits and funders", "order": 1, "summary": "Build a theory of change from the problem and its source to outcomes and indicators, with feedback from the people served, a comparison plan and a stop rule. Keep several drafts and export them as Markdown or JSON.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "measurement-gap", "missing-feedback-loop", "missing-voice", "symptom-trap" ], "help": [ "Share a real, published theory of change that others could learn from, with a pull request or an idea issue.", "Improve the prompts for what is still missing, in src/lib/client/theory-of-change.ts, with a source for each.", "Help with Open Problem 3, Measuring the Source, by proposing indicators for structure- and source-level work." ], "related": [ "/tools/due-diligence-checklist/", "/diagnosis/measurement-gap/", "/open-problems/measuring-the-source/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "What is Theory of Change?", "url": "https://www.theoryofchange.org/what-is-theory-of-change/", "publisher": "Center for Theory of Change", "year": 2026, "note": "Undated page, accessed October 2026." }, { "title": "Logic Model Development Guide", "url": "https://www.naccho.org/uploads/downloadable-resources/Programs/Public-Health-Infrastructure/KelloggLogicModelGuide_161122_162808.pdf", "publisher": "W.K. Kellogg Foundation", "year": 2004, "note": "Defines outputs, outcomes and impact. Copy hosted by NACCHO." }, { "title": "Introduction to randomized evaluations", "url": "https://www.povertyactionlab.org/resource/introduction-randomized-evaluations", "publisher": "Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)", "year": 2023 }, { "title": "Realizing the Promise of High-Quality Feedback", "url": "https://feedbacklabs.org/news-and-insights/realizing-the-promise-of-high-quality-feedback/", "publisher": "Juan Clavijo and Melinda Tuan, Feedback Labs", "year": 2021 }, { "title": "Closing the Feedback Loop", "url": "https://ssir.org/articles/entry/closing_the_feedback_loop", "publisher": "Kristine Wong, Stanford Social Innovation Review", "year": 2016 }, { "title": "Instructions for Form 990, Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (2025)", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i990", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2025, "note": "Part III asks for accomplishments in measures such as clients served." }, { "title": "Outcome and evidence planner", "url": "https://charities.systemicaltruism.com/toolkit/", "publisher": "Systemic Altruism", "year": 2026, "note": "Accessed October 2026." } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nFill in the parts of a theory of change in any order and watch the chain build itself in the preview: the problem people experience, the source that produces it, what the program does, what that produces, and what should change in the short, medium and long term. Then add the parts that keep a plan honest: indicators with a baseline and a target, the assumptions the chain rests on, how the people served will give feedback, how you will compare results with what would have happened anyway, the result that would make you change course, and who reviews it.\n\nThe preview lists what is still missing, as prompts rather than a score. Drafts are saved only in this browser. Keep as many as you like, and export any of them as Markdown to share or JSON to import again later. **Load example** adds a fictional program, Millbrook Reading Circles, as a separate draft, so you can see how the parts fit together.\n\n## The method\n\nA theory of change starts from the long-term goal and works backward through the conditions that must hold for it to happen, as the Center for Theory of Change describes. This toolkit adds a step before that: separating the **problem** people experience from its **source**, and asking where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) your work acts. Relief and source work are both needed. The point is to know which one you are doing, the treatment for [the Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/).\n\nIt keeps **outputs** and **outcomes** apart. In the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s logic model guide, outputs are the direct products of activities, and outcomes are changes in participants’ behavior, knowledge, skills, status or level of functioning. Outputs are easier to count. Even the Form 990 asks charities to describe accomplishments in measures such as clients served. The distance between the two is [the Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/).\n\nThree guardrails keep the plan honest. A **comparison** is needed because a program’s effect is the difference between what happened and what would have happened without it, which J-PAL calls the counterfactual. **Feedback from the people served** treats them as experts on their own lives. Listen4Good’s five-step model ends by reporting back to the people who answered, which is how [the Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/) starts to close and [the Missing Voice](/diagnosis/missing-voice/) starts to count. A **stop rule**, written before the results arrive, makes it easier to act on them honestly.\n\nFor a second view of the same questions, Systemic Altruism’s [outcome and evidence planner](https://charities.systemicaltruism.com/toolkit/) is a related open tool. It adds an optional cost scenario.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t an evaluation, and it doesn’t judge whether a plan is good. A complete-looking theory of change can still be wrong, which is why the assumptions, the comparison and the reviewer matter. The prompts are suggestions, and a small program may reasonably leave some parts simple. Nothing you write leaves your browser unless you download it." }, { "id": "legacy-planner", "path": "/tools/legacy-planner/", "title": "Legacy Planner", "group": "For donors", "order": 10, "summary": "A private worksheet for leaving gifts to charity in your will, with a printable summary and sample wording to take to your estate attorney.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "short-horizon", "restriction-reflex" ], "help": [ "Estate attorneys can review the sample wording in src/lib/client/legacy.ts and suggest improvements in an issue.", "Add a short, sourced note on how gifts in wills work where you live, so the planner can point people to it.", "Translate the worksheet’s explanations into another language." ], "related": [ "/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/", "/diagnosis/short-horizon/", "/tools/one-click-split/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Residuary estate", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/residuary_estate", "publisher": "Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School" }, { "title": "Contingent beneficiary", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contingent_beneficiary", "publisher": "Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School" }, { "title": "Cy pres doctrine", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/cy_pres_doctrine", "publisher": "Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School" }, { "title": "Sample language for your will or trust", "url": "https://plannedgiving.fredhutch.org/sample-language-for-your-will-or-trust/", "publisher": "Fred Hutch Cancer Center", "note": "One charity’s published guidance, showing the common kinds of bequest and why it values unrestricted gifts." }, { "title": "How to get an employer identification number for your business", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/how-to-get-an-employer-identification-number-for-your-business", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2026 }, { "title": "Employer identification number", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/employer-id-numbers", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service" }, { "title": "Taxpayers can find legitimate charities using the Tax Exempt Organization Search tool", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/taxpayers-can-find-legitimate-charities-using-the-tax-exempt-organization-search-tool", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service", "year": 2021 }, { "title": "26 U.S. Code § 2055, Transfers for public, charitable, and religious uses", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/2055", "publisher": "Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School" }, { "title": "Elective share", "url": "https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/elective_share", "publisher": "Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nList each charity you want to remember in your will. For each one, note the name you know it by, its full legal name and, if you can, its Employer Identification Number (EIN), the nine-digit federal tax ID the IRS assigns to businesses, tax-exempt organizations and other entities. The legal name and the EIN help your executor find the right organization. For U.S. charities, the IRS [Tax Exempt Organization Search](https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/) finds both by name or EIN, and shows whether an organization can receive tax-deductible gifts.\n\nThen choose the kind of gift and how the charity may use it. The planner builds a one-page summary with sample wording for each gift, labeled as sample language to discuss with your estate attorney. **Print summary** prints that page alone. Everything stays in this browser.\n\n## The kinds of gift\n\n- **A specific amount**, such as $5,000, written into the will as a fixed sum.\n- **A percentage of your estate**, such as 10 percent, so the gift grows or shrinks with your estate.\n- **A share of the residue**, which is what is left after your debts, taxes and expenses are paid and your other gifts are made.\n- **A contingent gift**, which takes effect only if a condition is met, such as when the people you named don’t survive you. The charity is your backup beneficiary.\n\n## Unrestricted or restricted\n\nA will may take effect decades after it is written. By then a charity’s programs, and the problem itself, may have changed. An unrestricted gift lets the organization use your money where it is needed most when it arrives. Fred Hutch Cancer Center’s guidance for donors, for example, calls unrestricted bequests the most valuable to it, because it can apply them to the area of greatest need.\n\nA restricted gift can get stuck if its purpose ends. Redirecting it may then take a court, applying a doctrine called *cy pres*, which means “as near as possible” to what you intended. If you restrict a gift, the sample wording lets the charity use it for the closest purpose instead. Charitology calls the habit of tying gifts to narrow purposes [the Restriction Reflex](/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/). A gift in a will is a gift to the future, which makes it a natural way to fund work on the timescale of the problem, the treatment for [the Short Horizon](/diagnosis/short-horizon/).\n\nThe **flexibility clause** covers a different risk: the organization itself may no longer exist, may have merged, or may no longer be a charity when your estate is settled. The clause lets your executor give the gift to its successor or to a charity with similar purposes.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t legal or tax advice, and it doesn’t make a will. Rules differ between countries and between states. In U.S. states with an elective share, for example, a surviving spouse can claim part of the estate whatever the will says. Taxes differ too: U.S. federal estate tax deducts gifts to qualifying charities from the taxable estate, and other places treat them differently. An estate attorney where you live can tell you what applies to you and draft the final wording. Nothing you type is sent anywhere." }, { "id": "one-click-split", "path": "/tools/one-click-split/", "title": "One-Click Split", "group": "For donors", "order": 9, "summary": "Split one giving decision across several charities, with whole-dollar amounts that add up exactly and a step-by-step list of where to give.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "The split planner is live. True one-click payment needs a licensed donation partner.", "conditions": [ "single-lens", "restriction-reflex" ], "help": [ "Know a regulated donation partner that could make the payment step real? Start a discussion, and say which licenses or registrations it holds.", "Suggest a clearer step list or another export format in an issue." ], "related": [ "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "/tools/giving-dashboard/", "/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Money Services Business (MSB) Registration", "url": "https://www.fincen.gov/money-services-business-msb-registration", "publisher": "Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, U.S. Department of the Treasury" }, { "title": "Money Services Business Definition", "url": "https://www.fincen.gov/money-services-business-definition", "publisher": "Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, U.S. Department of the Treasury" }, { "title": "Modernization of Money Transmission Laws", "url": "https://www.stinson.com/newsroom-publications-modernization-of-money-transmission-laws", "publisher": "Heidi Wicker and Audrey Carroll, Stinson LLP", "year": 2023, "note": "Reports that every state except Montana requires a license to act as a money transmitter." }, { "title": "The Money Transmission Modernization Act", "url": "https://www.csbs.org/node/408066", "publisher": "Conference of State Bank Supervisors", "year": 2023 }, { "title": "Charitable solicitation, state requirements", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-solicitation-state-requirements", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service" }, { "title": "PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)", "url": "https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/standards/pci-dss/", "publisher": "PCI Security Standards Council" }, { "title": "Donor-advised funds", "url": "https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/donor-advised-funds", "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service" }, { "title": "Donation Delivery Policy", "url": "https://www.paypal.com/us/paypal-giving-fund/policies/donation-delivery-policy", "publisher": "PayPal Giving Fund", "year": 2025, "note": "An example of a donation platform that is itself a charity and grants each gift to the charity the donor recommends. Cited to show the model, not as a recommendation." } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nStart from the portfolio you built in the [Portfolio Builder](/tools/portfolio-builder/), or from a blank plan. Enter a total, then add a row for each charity: its cause, its name, the address of its own donation page and its share. The planner turns the shares into whole-dollar amounts and a numbered list of steps. Each step has its own **Open donation page** button and a **Done** box, so you can give to one charity at a time and pick up where you left off. The plan is saved in this browser, and you can download it as CSV or Markdown.\n\nThere is deliberately no button that opens every page at once. One gift at a time is easier to check, and a page full of new tabs is easy to lose track of.\n\n## How the amounts add up\n\nThe shares must add up to exactly 100 percent. The planner rounds each amount down to whole dollars, then hands the dollars left over to the charities that lost the most in rounding, one dollar each. This is the largest remainder method. However the shares fall, the amounts always add up to your total.\n\nA portfolio usually spreads money across several causes, often through more than one moral lens, which is the treatment for [the Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/). The donation pages you choose decide whether each gift is restricted. Where a charity lets you choose, an unrestricted gift lets it fix what it learns is broken, the treatment for [the Restriction Reflex](/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/).\n\n## Why payment isn’t built in\n\nA true one-click split would take your money once and pay several charities. Doing that is a regulated business, and Charitology is a research project that runs in the open, not a payments company.\n\n- **Licensing.** A business that accepts money from one person to pass it to another is generally a money transmitter. In the United States, a money services business has to register with the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), with few exceptions. State regulators license and supervise money transmitters too, and as of 2023 every state except Montana required a license.\n- **Fundraising rules.** Many states require organizations to register before asking their residents for donations, and add rules for paid solicitors.\n- **Consumer protection.** Anyone who stores, processes or transmits card details has to meet the payment card industry’s security standard, PCI DSS. Donors also need refunds when something goes wrong, receipts, and confidence that the money arrives.\n\nThe honest route is a regulated partner. A donor-advised fund already works like a split: you give once to a sponsoring charity, which takes legal control of the money, and you advise it which charities to grant it to. Some donation platforms work the same way, as charities that receive your gift and grant it to the charity you recommend. One-click payment will come to Charitology only through a partner like that, chosen in the open. Until then, the planner does the arithmetic and you give on each charity’s own page.\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a payment service, and it never sees your card or bank details. Charitology doesn’t check donation page addresses beyond requiring a secure https address, so make sure each one belongs to the charity before you give. Nothing you type is sent anywhere." }, { "id": "portfolio-builder", "path": "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "title": "Portfolio Builder", "group": "For donors", "order": 2, "summary": "Split a giving budget across causes when you aren’t sure which moral framework is right, compare two ways of doing it, and see how much they agree.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "single-lens", "symptom-trap" ], "help": [ "Propose a better allocation method in an issue tagged open-problem, citing Open Problem 16.", "Improve the framework priorities in src/data/frameworks.json with a pull request that explains your reasoning." ], "related": [ "/tools/values-compass/", "/tools/one-click-split/", "/open-problems/moral-parliament-in-practice/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## Why a portfolio\n\nIf you think welfare matters most but justice and future generations count too, your giving can reflect all three in proportion. The builder explores how to act under [moral uncertainty](/record/encyclopedia/moral-uncertainty/), without assuming one framework must decide every gift.\n\n## The two methods\n\n**Each lens spends its share.** Every framework gets a slice of your budget equal to your credence in it and spends that slice on its own top causes. This resembles a *moral parliament*, where each view gets seats in proportion to your confidence in it. It tends to spread money widely.\n\n**Best on average.** Each cause gets a score: its priority under each framework, weighted by your credence. The money then goes to the five highest-scoring causes. This resembles maximizing *expected choice-worthiness*. It tends to concentrate money.\n\nWhen the two disagree, your answer depends on the method as much as on your values. Nobody has settled which method is right. That is [Open Problem 16](/open-problems/moral-parliament-in-practice/), and the builder shows you where it bites.\n\n## Relief or sources\n\nThe slider shifts money toward causes whose work tends to sit deeper on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), or toward relief. Neither end is correct. The point is to choose your mix on purpose, which is the treatment for [the Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/).\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nThe builder allocates across cause areas, not charities. To turn a portfolio into gifts, take it to [One-Click Split](/tools/one-click-split/). The framework priorities are editorial judgments, published in `src/data/frameworks.json` for anyone to challenge." }, { "id": "public-api", "path": "/tools/public-api/", "title": "Public API", "group": "For everyone", "order": 2, "summary": "Every Charitology dataset as static JSON, free to use with attribution. Build the Diagnosis, the interventions or the open problems into your own app or donation platform.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "fragmentation", "missing-feedback-loop" ], "help": [ "Build something with the data and share it in an issue labeled built-with.", "Propose a new endpoint in src/lib/api.ts." ], "related": [ "/record/open-datasets/", "/tools/charity-lookup/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nThe API is a set of JSON files generated every time the site is built, so it is always in step with the site. There are no keys, no accounts and no rate limits, and nothing is logged beyond what the static host keeps.\n\n## License\n\nData is published under [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Cite it as “Charitology (charitology.org)”. Figures sourced from other publishers keep their sources in the data so you can cite them too.\n\n## Why an API\n\nMost giving decisions happen somewhere else: on donation platforms, in workplace giving portals and in advisors’ spreadsheets. An open API lets the method travel to where decisions are made, which helps the system coordinate instead of fragmenting further. See [the Fragmentation Problem](/diagnosis/fragmentation/)." }, { "id": "values-compass", "path": "/tools/values-compass/", "title": "Values Compass", "group": "For donors", "order": 1, "summary": "Answer thirteen quick questions about what you care about and see which causes fit you, why they fit, and what the moral lenses you use least would show you.", "status": "live", "conditions": [ "single-lens", "story-bias", "proximity-pull" ], "help": [ "Challenge a cause position or framework priority with a pull request to src/data/causes.json or src/data/frameworks.json.", "Suggest a better question for the compass in src/data/compass.json." ], "related": [ "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "/record/cause-atlas/", "/programs/moral-frameworks-program/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## How it works\n\nPart 1 asks where you would aim: at people alive now or the future, at humans or all life, near or far, at proven results or long shots, at relief or at sources. Part 2 asks how much each of eight moral statements sounds like you. Each statement stands for a framework: welfare, rights and duties, justice, care, faith and tradition, future generations, all life, and flourishing.\n\nYour answers in part 2 become weights on those frameworks. Each framework ranks the [cause areas](/record/cause-atlas/) differently, and your weights combine those rankings. Your answers in part 1 are compared with where each cause sits on the same five dimensions. A cause’s match score is about two-thirds lens and one-third fit.\n\n## What your other lenses see\n\nThe compass also shows the causes your least-used frameworks rank highly. It is an experiment in considering more than one moral lens, connected to the working hypothesis in [the Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/).\n\n## What it isn’t\n\nIt isn’t a recommendation to give to any charity, and it isn’t a measurement. The cause positions and framework priorities are editorial judgments, published openly so you can check and challenge them. Your answers stay in your browser. A share link stores them in the link itself, not on any server." } ] }