Why is a charity “not rated” by Charity Intelligence?
Charity Intelligence is an independent Canadian research organization whose analysts review a few hundred charities in depth and publish a star rating, a results-reporting grade and a demonstrated-impact assessment. In the current Charity Compass dataset 819 charities carry a rating; the other 82,942 simply have not been reviewed.
What a rating includes
Charity Intelligence scores financial transparency, results reporting, the cents-to-the-cause range, the need for funding, and where evidence allows, demonstrated impact. The overall rating is up to five stars. Charity Compass shows these as Tier 2 figures, labelled as Charity Intelligence's work and never blended into our own computed numbers.
Why most charities are unrated
Deep review takes analyst time, so coverage concentrates on larger and better-known organizations. A small community charity is unrated because nobody has reviewed it, not because a review found problems.
How Charity Compass treats unrated charities
In search rankings an unrated charity receives a neutral value for the analyst-impact ingredient, so it is neither punished nor rewarded for lack of coverage. Our own Tier 1 figures are computed for every charity whose filing has enough detail, rated or not.
Common questions
- Is Charity Compass affiliated with Charity Intelligence?
- No. Charity Compass displays Charity Intelligence's published ratings with attribution and links, and computes its own figures separately from CRA open data.
- Can I search only rated charities?
- Yes. The rating filter on the search page limits results to charities with three, four or five stars.
Search analyst-rated charities
Figures: CRA List of Charities open data, F2024 release, computed across 72,356 operating charities where the lines exist · self-reported by each charity · last reviewed 2026-09-15. Charity Compass is not affiliated with the CRA or Charity Intelligence.