So what does the world of investments have to do with giving money to charity?

What is the connection between building a database for stock markets and a noble cause like setting up and running a charity?

As it turns out - a lot.

Money is scarce.

There are plenty of people out there who need money so that they can help others. So we give you, as a user of www.HelpYourNGO.com a wide choice of which kind of charity you wish to help.

But money should go where it has the most effect, the largest impact. So we have given you tools to see how your money is spent by different charities and NGOs.

Wouldn’t you like to know how much of the money you donated actually reaches the noble cause you gave it for?

What if you knew that Charity A was spending 30% of the money it raised on promotional activities and only 70% was getting to the final noble cause that the charity was set up for?

And that Charity B, set up for the similar noble cause as Charity A, spent less than 10% of the money it raised on similar activities allowing 90% of what you donate to be used to reach where you intended it to reach?

Which charity would you like to give your money to: Charity A or Charity B?

Which charity would you like to devote your spare time if you had time to spare and ideas to share: Charity A or Charity B?

In addition to being able to select from a wide variety of charities that you may wish to give your money to, we also believe that HelpYourNGO will force the charities to shape up. The increased transparency in seeing the financials of their charities on this web site will force the charities to become more efficient and utilize their limited resources better.

We saw this in the cement industry.

Power and fuel costs are a significant cost for the manufacture of cement. When we began to ask one particular cement company why their costs were higher than their competitors, the cement company immediately realised that an external agency was studying them – this acted as a catalyst to convert themselves into a more efficient user of energy and reduce their cost of producing cement

Comparing administrative costs will also, in our view, force charities to be more efficient. Every rupee saved on administration, is an extra rupee for the cause that charity is trying to help

But a database on charities has limitations. Numbers, we acknowledge, cannot reflect everything

We know that it costs less for an NGO to employ a person in Bihar compared to a employee in Bombay city. Therefore, some of the expense and administration ratios may be skewed when one compares a charity in Bihar with a charity in Bombay – even if the two charities are doing the same thing

And some charities within the same broad group (for example, charities that help children) have different objectives: one may give children only day school facilities and food; another may also give the children a place to stay at night. This would influence the expense numbers, the quality of help given, and the number of people benefited may differ

Yet, knowing these limitations of numbers, we continued.

After all some information is better than none. Armed with numbers, a donor can always ask for clarifications. One can always improve the quality of the database as time goes on. Analyzing companies and annual reports is not a perfect science. Brilliant people have been analyzing that annual reports of listed companies for centuries and still make mistakes and errors of judgement. The accounting profession continuously strives to improve the standards of disclosure in an annual report so that the date better reflects its true position. We will let the research analysts in the equity stock markets find their analytical nirvana. Meanwhile, we hope that HelpYourNGO.com will help you find your nirvana by sharing some of what you have with those who need it.