How cause funds work
A cause fund is a list of charities and a split. Both come from rules we publish here, applied to the same public records as our ratings. Nobody picks favorites, and no charity can pay to be included.
Method version funds-2026.2.
Who qualifies
- Passes every legitimacy check: registered, not revoked, eligible for deductible gifts, not on a state's barred list.
- Scores at least 50 out of 100 on both financial health and governance.
- Has no points to look into.
- Has evidence of results: an independent evaluator's recommendation, or measurable results stated in its own tax return.
- Works in the fund's cause, by its IRS classification.
- Has not asked to be left out. A charity that opts out leaves every fund the same day.
- Gets at least 50% of its income from private donations and grants, not counting government grants, so a gift matters to it. Hospitals, universities and organizations that run on fees or public money are left out.
- Gets no more than 25% of its income from fees for its services, such as tuition or patient charges.
- Has not been set aside after a person's review: because its IRS classification does not match its work, or because it exists only to raise money for one institution that could not itself qualify, such as a university or hospital. Every such exclusion is published with its reason.
How the split is worked out
- Weight
- evidence multiplier × rating factor × square root of yearly income
- Evidence multiplier
- Independently evaluated: 2. Reports results in its return: 1
- Rating factor
- financial health plus governance, divided by 200 (so between 0.6 and 1.0)
- Size
- the square root of income, so a charity ten times larger gets about three times the weight, not ten
- Holdings
- the top 12 by weight; a fund needs at least 5 to open
- Cap
- no charity above 25% of the fund; the excess is spread over the others
- Rebalancing
- every quarter, after ratings are recomputed, with every change published; between quarters a holding that stops qualifying is removed at once and the rest reweighted
- Rounding
- a gift is split to the cent; the rounding remainder goes to the largest holding
Each fund page shows the figures behind every holding's weight, so you can recompute the split yourself.
Set aside after review
The rules are arithmetic on IRS records, and IRS records are sometimes wrong or beside the point. When a person finds that a charity qualifies only because its classification does not match its work, or that it exists only to raise money for one institution that could not itself qualify (a university, a hospital), it is set aside and the reason is listed here. This is the only place judgment enters, and it can only remove, never add.
- Association of Former Students of Texas a & M University (EIN 74-0490865), September 30, 2026: An alumni association that exists to raise money for one university, which could not itself qualify for the fund.
- Noble Research Institute LLC (EIN 73-0606209), September 30, 2026: Coded as scholarships (B82) in the IRS master file; its return describes agricultural research and advice to farmers, not education for students.
- Old Dominion Land Conservancy Inc (EIN 54-1897302), September 30, 2026: Coded as education (B99) in the IRS master file; its return describes land conservation and easements, not education.
- Social Good Fund Inc (EIN 46-1323531), September 30, 2026: A fiscal sponsor: gifts to it fund hundreds of unrelated projects, not the education work its IRS code (B99) suggests.
- Target ALS Foundation Inc (EIN 81-0756743), September 30, 2026: Coded as scholarships (B82) in the IRS master file; its return describes funding ALS medical research, not education.
- Virginia Student Aid Foundation (EIN 54-0517188), September 30, 2026: Raises money for one university's athletics program. A university cannot itself qualify for the fund, and neither can a foundation that exists only to fund one.
What a fund is not
- It is not a judgment that these are the best charities in the cause. It is the set that meets published rules today.
- It does not measure how much good each charity does per dollar. Very few charities have been evaluated for that; those that have count double.
- It is not fixed. Holdings change when ratings, income or evidence change, and every change is listed.