Why research?

One of the three Kinder pillars is our research and consultancy team. We want to raise the bar in the charitable sector by encouraging donations to effective organisations. We vet organisations to assess performance and share our findings with (potential) donors, but also with the charitable organisations to help them improve their performance. 

Our aim

The aim of our research is to help the charitable sector effectively tackle the global challenges of our time. We want to achieve this by taking the following steps:

• Collect in-depth information about charitable organisations
• Use our findings to consult charitable organisations to improve their performance

Collecting information

In collaboration with Erasmus and Duke Universities our research team has developed a state-of-the-art vetting framework to assess the performance of charitable organisations. This framework consists of four steps:

1. Initial screening
First off, we assess the transparency and accountability of charitable organisations. To pass our initial screening, organisations need to be transparent about their finances and strategic plans. After all, donors want to know what their contributions are being spent on. Accountability naturally follows transparency; it should be clear to you, as a donor, who’s in charge of what within the organisation and how to reach them.

2. Organisational Competence
Secondly, we assess organisations’ long-term capabilities. We check whether they are capable of planning for the future in an effective manner. Do they evaluate their own programs closely? Do they engage with research? Here, we look for competent organisations that strive to act ethically and with integrity.

3. Intervention Effectiveness
On the third step, we focus on the effectiveness of these organisations’ interventions. After all, it’s crucial that their programs actually work towards solving problems the organisation focuses on. Ideally, these interventions should be cost-effective as well as effective, making the most of donations.

4. Cause Area Analysis
As our final step, we identify organisations that tackle the most urgent and important problems within a certain cause area. We realise, of course, what’s most urgent and important is subjective and contextual. We’re not here to judge anyone who wants to do good for the world. What we want to achieve with this step is to give (potential) donors candid information about the sector so they can make informed decisions.

Want to dive deeper into our vetting framework? Read the extensive explanation here.

Consultancy

We trigger charitable organisations to elevate their vetting scores by providing positive attention on our media and donation platforms to the top performers. We actively share the findings of our vetting process, provide concrete suggestions for improvement and connect them with each other to learn and share. This will improve their performance and hence their capacity to make the world a better place.