[albedo]

The proportion spent on fundraising isn't a good indicator of effectiveness either. Generally, the metrics tracked by Charity Navigator are easy to measure, and aren't very useful.

GiveWell is a much better evaluator of charity quality. Since they spend much more time on analyzing each charity, they cover way fewer charities. They are quite strategic about prioritizing which ones to interview. http://www.givewell.org/international/process

[xhrpost]

Interesting, GiveWell goes as far as to not recommend Heifer, though for different reasons.