Maryellen Hess Cameron spent over 25 years as the Executive Director of non-profit agencies in the social.... It’s difficult for some charities to ask for donations. They don’t have a history of it, they are shy about asking for money or maybe they don’t have the staff or board members with the right skills. Take heart! If your agency needs a strategy to build a donor base online, then donor education sites can be valuable partners. “Too often, we give not to the causes that are most effective, but rather to those that are best at asking for it.” Nicholas Kristoff, Year of Living Better Donor education sites give you a place to build donor trust in your organization as an effective, financially healthy nonprofit. After all, there is a high correlation between trust and financial support. A 2019 Give.org survey found that 70% of survey respondents believe that trust is the most important consideration when they are considering charitable donations, ranking trust a 9 on a 10 point scale. Articulating successful outcomes is the foundation of strong appeals for donations. Proof of impact and effective solicitation for resources is a powerful combination. The donor education platforms share your success to a broad audience. You can use them as tools to solidify your position with existing donors and introduce you to others that care about your mission. These sites have missions to provide donors with accurate information they can use for wise giving. They have established benchmarks that they use to assess agencies objectively. Most of them welcome input from individual nonprofits. You can provide the information to demonstrate you meet those standards. This article provides an understanding of donor education sites and how you can optimize their value to you. A follow-up article will build on that knowledge with more in-depth descriptions of five sites: Charity Navigator, GuideStar, BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Watch and Great Nonprofits. What is a donor education service? It is an established resource donors can use to evaluate charities. There is a wealth of advice for donors – and educating them on making an informed choice is at the top of the list. This is true for donors already familiar with a particular agency. It is also true that donors use them to search for charities addressing an issue important to them, where they may give an unsolicited contribution. They also serve to prevent a misuse of scarce resources. Dishonest nonprofits target donors with emotional appeals that vacuum up donations that won’t be used as intended. Some are outright scams, using names that mislead donors into thinking their donations are going to organizations with good reputations. Other nonprofits seek donations for legitimate reasons but they do not achieve much for each dollar they receive. Given the need charities have for money, compared to resources available to them, donors need information about where their contributions will be used most effectively. There are multiple donor education sites with similar missions: to provide objective and detailed information about agencies that donors can use to evaluate their investments before making them. Remember, donations are investments. Donors care about causes and outcomes. They look for the organizations that will pay a good dividend, measured as an improved quality of life for its constituents. To be more explicit, the sites word their objectives a bit differently but each one strives to serve as a reliable source of information. Donors should be able to trust that an agency achieves the most impact per dollar possible and uses its funding with integrity. This information is clearly in demand. Donors make millions of visits to information sources about charities every year. The sites have another goal - to inspire people and organizations to begin making charitable contributions, if they have not done so in the past, or to increase their gifts if they have a history of giving. The sites bring together information in one place for ease of donor use. Not only does that reduce research time for donors, but it can also provide information they may not know how to find.