Jewish nonprofits make Charity Navigator’s Top 10 lists, some for good some for bad

Charity Navigator just published its annual Top 10 lists, and Jewish nonprofits showed up on several of the rankings, including “Top 10 Charities with consecutive 4-star ratings” and “Top 10 charities drowning in administrative costs.” (No Jewish organizations showed up on the list of “highly effective charities with low paid CEOs.”)

Some Jewish charities fared well:

• The Jewish Communal Fund in New York, which has nearly a half a billion dollars in assets, ranked number 1 on the list of “Slam dunk charities,” which points out nonprofits that spend their money well and make their donors happy.
• The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was ranked number 9 on “Top 10 best charities everyone has heard of.”
• The Western Wall Heritage Fund, which helps pay for construction and renovation on the Western Wall, ranked 6 on “Charities expanding in a hurry.”

Others showed up on less glorious lists:

• The Center for Jewish History in New York made an auspicious list, ranking 6 on the “Ten charities that routinely operate in the red” list.
• The Federation, Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut ranked number 5, and the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties ranked number 10 on the list of “Charities stockpiling your money,” a list that points out charities that are building their endowments and have at least two years of expenses in reserves, but aren’t really spending much money on programming.
• And two Jewish charities simply don’t get much love. The Museum of Eldridge Street, which tracks the history of Jewish immigrants to New York’s Lower East Side, and the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut ranked number 9 and number 2, respectively, on the list of charities with the least page views on charitynavigator.org in April.