Five Stars for New Users' Guide to Great Nonprofits

Perla Ni, former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and friends have just launched GreatNonprofits, a new site that aims to be the Zagat guide to nonprofits.

Frankly, I couldn't be happier about this latest resource in the "get a better idea of whom you're giving to" universe. Yes, it's great to see 990s and charts on how budget is allocated. But I'm hooked on insights from peers (I'm addicted to Amazon's user reviews, and never buy a book without reading a few), and GreatNonprofits gives me what I never had before.

At Greatnonprofits.org, donors can read personal stories, see photos, and videos showing how people have volunteered with, worked with, donated to, or benefited from the work of nonprofits.

GreatNonprofits is piloting in Pittsburgh in partnership with the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, over 300 nonprofits are participating.  Reviews of nonprofits have been written by people who have volunteered, who have donated or who have benefited from a nonprofit's services. 

Says Vivien Luk of Pittsburgh's Forbes Funds, "We see GreatNonprofits as a way to connect the public with services provided by our local nonprofits and to better connect nonprofits with each other.  This is also a great way to increase donations and volunteerism for our local nonprofits.

Great work, Great Nonprofits.

P.S. I've found that giving participants (and here that means donors, volunteers, board members, program participants, service users) a venue to spread the word like this gets them even more fired up. Nice byproduct of a very useful service, Perla.

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