What are the best charities to donate to in 2023?

When you care about making a difference in the world, it's natural to ask: "Where can my donations do the most good?"

The great news is that your donations can have an astonishing impact.

But to maximise your impact you need to donate effectively. This is especially important given the best charities are often 10 times better than a typical charity within the same area and hundreds of times better than poorly performing charities. The worst charities can even do harm. That means if you donated $100 to the best charity, you could be doing even more good than someone who donates $1,000 to a typical charity, or $10,000 to a poorly performing one.

How to donate effectively

The point of charity is to help others. Donating effectively means that you’re taking steps to make sure you’re helping others the most for every dollar you give.

We think the best way to do this is to:

Identify a promising cause to support. The most promising causes are generally:

Large in scale: they significantly impact many lives

Neglected: they still need more funding and support

Tractable: there are clear and practical ways of making progress

Choose an excellent fund or charity working on the cause. Indicators of worthwhile organisations include: reliance on evidence, cost-effectiveness, transparency, room for more funding, and a strong track record. We generally recommend giving to expert-managed funds over charities, because they can allocate your donation where and when it is needed most.

Pick an efficient way to donate. ****Try getting your donation matched by your employer or set up a recurring donation.

In practice, choosing a cause and evaluating funds and charities can take a lot of time and effort, and many donors aren't able to work it into their busy schedules. To help you get started, we've put together a list of trustworthy, cost-effective funds and charities working on some of the most pressing causes.

Our effective giving recommendations

These recommendations are listed roughly in order of convenience and suitability for most donors. The right giving opportunity for you will depend on your particular values and worldview.

Giving What We Can does not take any fees from donors using our platform. We are independently funded to promote our mission of making giving effectively and significantly a cultural norm. We’re here to help you do the most good through your giving. Read more on our transparency page.

Option 1: Donate to the expert-managed funds below (Recommended for most people)

For most people, we recommend donating through an expert-led fund that is focused on effectiveness.

Funds are both convenient and highly effective. They allow donors to pool their money so that they can support outstanding giving opportunities that are evaluated by expert grantmakers and trusted charity evaluators.

This approach is similar to using an investment fund instead of trying to pick which individual stocks will be the best investments. The fund distributes your donation among multiple grantees with the goal of maximising your overall impact. Read more about the advantages of funds.

Donors from the US, UK, and the Netherlands can make tax-deductible donations to the following funds using the Giving What We Can donation platform. For other countries, you can read our tax deductibility guide by country — but we still think these funds are likely to be your best option, even if they’re not tax deductible.

Here are our top-rated funds grouped by cause area.

Learn more about how we choose which charities and funds to recommend.