"Zagat-like" Web site for Non-profits

"When's the last time you bought a book from Amazon and didn't read the customer reviews?" Perla Ni, founder and chief executive of Great Nonprofits asks, in a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article (subscription required).

Likened to a Zagat restaurant guide, Ms. Ni and her team's new web site, Great Nonprofits, allows people who receive help from a charity or who volunteer for one to log on and rate their experience on a scale of one to five stars. In addition, people can add comments of praise, suggestions, or criticism about what the charity does well or needs to improve. Just as Zagat's helps you determine the best restaurant to go to in town, Great Nonprofits helps you decide which charities are worth supporting.

The idea for Great Nonprofits sprang after Hurricane Katrina when Ms. Ni, then publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, wanted to know which local charities were doing a good job. They had a difficult time figuring that out, however, despite being insiders in the nonprofit world. Ms. Ni knew there was a market for such information because at the Review she had seen countless efforts to effectively evaluate charities. "That's a question at the heart of every donor," she says, "How can I trust you with my money and my time?"

Great Nonprofit sites for Pittsburgh and San Francisco have recently launched, with plans for more city sites in the near future.