Charity Navigator Rating

At Heifer International, accountability is at the very center of the core values that drive our work. Our programs focus on delivering maximum impact for the communities we work with, while ensuring maximum transparency to all our partners – including our supporters. Our consolidated audited financials are published on our website. The most recent version is available here.  

Charity Navigator uses a standardized rating system for all charities. It applies a formula to income and expenses numbers in an organization’s IRS Form 990 that is submitted each year. While we understand the ease of being able to compare organizations across a number of core categories, the Charity Navigator methodology does not reflect the full impact and value of our work.

As part of our community development model, for each family we work with at least one other benefits – often many more. Each family that partners with us on a project commits to passing on a cow, goats, chickens, seeds, supplies for an irrigation system or even an energy-efficient oven – whatever makes the most sense for them and their neighbors once they've established their business. It’s truly a network effect that often repeats many times over. Families share the core components necessary to start a business and any other lessons that they’ve learned along the way. In doing so, they give families in their communities the tools they need to start their own businesses, creating a network of partners, suppliers, and even customers – all invested in seeing each other’s businesses thrive and grow.

Money invested by Heifer International through our programs also helps unlock millions of dollars of additional funding from other entities – all of which increases the impact of our work for project participants. These funds are not included in Heifer’s financials and IRS Form 990, but are outlined on page 27 of our 2020 annual report.