Best Liked Charities
Shriners Hospitals appeared among the top ten in a list of the country's "best-liked charities," according to a poll conducted by the national publication Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The poll asked nearly 1,500 adults to name the charities they like best, charities they find most credible, and charities they strongly support and donate to most frequently, along with charities they dislike most and find least credible.
Shriners Hospitals appeared among the top ten of charities described as "best liked" and "most credible" -- #9 and #8, respectively. Survey respondents also named Shriners Hospitals among the top 20 of the charities they most strongly support (#18) and those they most frequently donate to (also #18).
The Chronicle's report on its survey was picked up on the wire services and carried in many newspapers across the United States, including a story carried in the national newspaper USA Today. The USA Today article noted that most of the charities Americans say they like best are those that focus on health issues, such as the American Red Cross, American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. Children (Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts) and pets (Humane Society) also rated high as favorite charities.
Earlier, the Chronicle of Philanthropy had published its annual "Philanthropy 400" list, which ranks charities by the amount of private donations they receive. On that list, Shriners Hospitals came in 15th, slightly below the Boy Scouts of America and Harvard University.
Shriners Hospitals has been named by leading financial magazine among the top most efficient charties
The December 2000 issue of Smart Money, the Wall Street Journal magazine of personal finance, contained an article titled "Give & Take" on year-end chartable giving, telling readers where they can get the most bang for the buck.
Smart Money analyzed three years of financial data for the 100 largest charities to find out which are run the most efficiently.
A sidebar story, "Put you money where our math is," lists the top 17 charities. Number one amoung the health charties is Shriners Hospital for Children, followed by the National Mental Health Association and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
Smart Money authors indicated that donors want their dollars put to good use. Shriners Hospitals scored 94.9 percent in program ratio, which reveals how much of a charity's budget actually goes to program activities. Watchdog groups say this figure should not fall below 60 percent.
Next, authors figured the fund raising ratio, or how much of every dollar donated from public goes to fund raising. In this case, the lower the number the better indicating effciency of raising money. Here, Shriners Hospitals scored 0.7, far surpassing the other leading health organizations.
The third, and final, calculation - the savings ratio- reflects how much a charity saves of incoming money. Though Shriners Hospitals scored a high 68.4 here, primarily because of its endowment fund, its overall score of 83.1 still surpassed the second-ranked health organization by 7.2 points.
This latest good news on a nation scale follows on the heels of other prominent rankings published several years ago in U.S. News & World Report, in which Shriners Hospitals ranked third among health charities, and in USA Today,in which the hospital system was named among America's favorite charties.
Shriners Hospitals have appeared near the top of other charitable rankings, as well. In November 1994, Worth magazine ranked Shriners Hospitals #2 on its list of the "ten most efficient charities," which rated non-profits according to their administrative and fund-raising costs.
Shriners Hospitals previously were named third among "charities that watch their pennies best" (Money Magazine, 1989) and received a "fundraising efficiency index" of 100 percent (Forbes, 1991).
For the record, Mothers Against Drunk Driving was the country's #1 best-liked charity, and the Special Olympics were deemed "most credible."
March 1995