The Best Charities That Don’t Take Taxpayer Cash

8. DonorsChoose

CharityNavigator Score: 67.86

When DonorsChoose opened its doors in 2000, its new approach to donor relations proved to be a huge hit. The organization focuses on the educational sector, and describes its vision of “a nation where students in every community have the resources they need to learn.”

To achieve that goal, the organization collects funding requests from teachers around the country for specific classroom projects, and lets donors choose (hence the name) which individual projects they want their money to go to.

Managing an annual budget of more than $24 million, DonorsChoose says it has funded more than 90,000 projects, which has surely been proven invaluable in classrooms that do have to worry about public budgets and dwindling resources.