GiveRadar vs CAF America: an honest comparison
CAF America and GiveRadar sit on opposite sides of the same decision. CAF America moves money across borders: it vets foreign organizations and makes tax-effective grants on behalf of US donors, foundations, and corporations. GiveRadar does not move money at all: it is a free intelligence layer that shows you how a charity is run before anyone gives.
Primary sources
All CAF America figures are from its own published pages as of July 2026 and will drift; volatile figures carry their date where stated. GiveRadar figures are live counts from this platform.
This page is written and maintained by GiveRadar. We make no claim to neutrality: we built GiveRadar and we believe in it, and we have tried to represent CAF America fairly. CAF America is an established leader in compliant cross-border grantmaking, and we recommend it without reservation for donors and institutions that need that service. The two answer different questions and combine well. If you spot an inaccuracy, email info@giveradar.com and we will correct it.
Matt Timmermans
Founder of GiveRadar
GiveRadar
CAF AmericaWhat are GiveRadar and CAF America each for?
They sit on opposite sides of the same cross-border gift: one moves the money, the other researches the charity. Name which job you are hiring for and the choice is clear.
Research how a charity is run
"Who is this organization, what does it disclose, and how does it compare?"
This needs free, open records at scale: registration, financials, leadership, and a disclosure score from official registries. GiveRadar answers it across 100+ countries, and CAF America is not a research tool.
Answered by GiveRadar
Move money across borders
"How do I make a tax-effective grant to a charity in another country?"
This needs a compliant intermediary: Equivalency Determination, Expenditure Responsibility, and managed giving vehicles that get funds to a foreign charity legally. CAF America has done exactly this since 1992, and GiveRadar cannot move money at all.
Answered by CAF AmericaWho each one is
GiveRadar
GiveRadar is a free charity intelligence platform covering 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries, built from 50+ official government registries and tax authorities, plus vetted directories where no registry data exists.
Every charity gets a 0-100 integrity assessment of disclosure and governance signals: registration, financial transparency, governance, contact availability, and data recency. It measures what an organization discloses, not its impact, and it cannot be bought.
Profiles add red flags, officer compensation where disclosed, GiveRadar Analysis peer context, and watchlists with change alerts. Developers get a REST API and MCP server with free tiers, and every data point shows its provenance.
CAF America
CAF America is a cross-border giving intermediary, a US 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 43-1634280) founded in 1992 in Alexandria, Virginia, and part of the CAF Group alongside the UK parent Charities Aid Foundation (established 1924), CAF Canada, the CAF American Donor Fund, and CAF Bank.
As of July 2026 it advertises access to nearly two million charitable organizations across 135 countries, with 380,000 charities in its validated network and over $4.6 billion in cumulative grants. Its services span Donor Advised Funds, Employee Engagement Funds, Legacy Giving, Disaster Relief, and Grant Management.
Its compliance work rests on Equivalency Determination and Expenditure Responsibility, plus a proprietary Enhanced Expenditure Responsibility (EER) hybrid, and vetted organizations can display its public CAF International Validated Organization Badge. Jessie Krafft has been President and CEO since September 2024. It publishes no general fee schedule and no public API.
CAF America moves the money, GiveRadar researches the charity
There is no winner here because the two tools rarely answer the same question. If you need to get money to a foreign charity legally and tax-effectively as a US donor, foundation, or corporation, CAF America is built for exactly that, with three decades of cross-border compliance practice, and GiveRadar cannot do any of it.
If you want to research how a specific charity is run, what it discloses, who leads it, and how it compares to peers, GiveRadar does that for free across 100+ countries, and CAF America is not a research tool. The honest overlap is vetting: CAF America validates organizations for grant eligibility and marks them with a public badge, while GiveRadar publishes a disclosure-based integrity assessment on every charity it covers.
How big is CAF America?
CAF America is a serious cross-border grantmaking operation with three decades of practice and grants at scale. These are its own published headline figures.
Source: cafamerica.org, as of July 2026; its Fidelity Charitable partner profile lists roughly 6,000 grants per year across 100+ countries. GiveRadar does not move money and makes no grants: its scale is coverage, 7.9 million+ nonprofits in 100+ countries, free to everyone.
How does CAF America's badge differ from GiveRadar's score?
Both signal something about a charity, but they are different kinds of signal made for different reasons. One is a pass or fail for grant eligibility; the other is an open disclosure score on every charity.
GiveRadar: integrity assessment
- A 0-100 measure of public disclosure and governance signals.
- Published on every charity GiveRadar covers, asked for or not.
- Computed from official records, and it cannot be bought.
CAF America: Validated Organization Badge
- A public seal awarded after a Grant Eligibility Application and risk-based due diligence.
- A pass signal for grant eligibility, not a numeric score.
- Held only by organizations that applied and cleared the review.
The badge tells you an organization cleared an intermediary's vetting; the integrity assessment tells you how much it discloses publicly. They answer different questions and can sensibly coexist on the same organization.
GiveRadar vs CAF America: the full comparison table
These tools serve different functions; the table lines them up across the dimensions where each is meaningful. CAF America figures last reviewed July 2026 and will drift; check cafamerica.org for current numbers.
| Dimension | GiveRadar | CAF America |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Free charity intelligence platform | Cross-border giving intermediary (US 501(c)(3), part of the CAF Group) |
| Coverage | 7.9 million+ nonprofits | Access to nearly 2 million charitable organizations; 380,000 in its validated network |
| Geography | 100+ countries | 135 countries served |
| What the score or seal means | Integrity assessment, 0-100: disclosure and governance signals only. Not impact, cannot be bought | Validated Organization Badge: a public seal after a due diligence review; signals grant eligibility, not a numeric score |
| Price | Free for everyone; no pay-to-play | No published fee schedule for its giving and grantmaking services; pricing requires contacting CAF America directly |
| Data source | 50+ official government registries and tax authorities; provenance per data point | Its own due diligence: Equivalency Determination, Expenditure Responsibility, and Enhanced Expenditure Responsibility |
| API | REST API and MCP server, free tiers available | No public API; account-managed service relationships |
| Monitoring | Watchlists and change alerts on any charity | Grant management and compliance monitoring for its own clients |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone to see every column.
When should you use CAF America vs GiveRadar?
Research and execution are different jobs, and for a cross-border grant you often want both.
Use GiveRadar when
- You want to check a specific charity before giving: registration, financials, leadership, red flags, and an integrity assessment, all free.
- You are giving directly or domestically and just need reliable background on the organization.
- You want data from official registries with per-field provenance, not an intermediary's internal eligibility file.
- You need a free API or MCP server for lookups, or watchlists to monitor organizations over time.
Use CAF America when
- You are a US donor, foundation, or corporation making a tax-effective grant to a charity outside the United States.
- You need formal cross-border compliance: Equivalency Determination, Expenditure Responsibility, or its EER hybrid.
- You want managed giving vehicles: Donor Advised Funds, Employee Engagement Funds, Legacy Giving, or Disaster Relief.
- You are a foreign nonprofit seeking US funding and want to enter a validated network grantmakers already use.
Use both when
You are planning a cross-border grant. Use GiveRadar first to research candidate organizations, their disclosure record, and their peers, then engage CAF America to structure and deliver the grant compliantly. If an organization already carries the CAF International Validated Organization Badge, look it up on GiveRadar for an independent second view: the badge signals grant eligibility, the integrity assessment signals disclosure. Both are useful, and neither replaces the other.
Is GiveRadar a good CAF America alternative?
If you are searching for a CAF America alternative, be clear about which job you are hiring for. For the core job, moving money across borders with US tax compliance, GiveRadar is honestly not an alternative at all: we do not accept donations, do not make grants, do not perform Equivalency Determination or Expenditure Responsibility, and cannot make a gift to a foreign charity tax-deductible. CAF America has done that work since 1992 and distributes at scale; the CAF Group states it distributes over $1.4 billion annually (as of July 2026).
Where GiveRadar is a genuine alternative is the research step that comes before the money moves. CAF America's validation exists to establish grant eligibility for its clients, and its detailed findings stay inside the service relationship. GiveRadar makes charity intelligence public and free: 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries from 50+ official sources, an integrity assessment on every charity, red flags, officer records with compensation where disclosed, and provenance on every data point. If you want to know who a foreign charity is before you ever contact an intermediary, start with the charity checker or browse by country.
GiveRadar and CAF America: common questions
Is GiveRadar a CAF America alternative?
Not for grantmaking: GiveRadar does not move money, structure Donor Advised Funds, or perform cross-border compliance work such as Equivalency Determination, so it cannot replace CAF America's intermediary services. It is an alternative for the research step: instead of relying only on an intermediary's internal eligibility file, you can check any of 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries on GiveRadar for free, with an integrity assessment, red flags, and registry-sourced data. Many grantmakers use GiveRadar to shortlist and monitor organizations and an intermediary like CAF America to fund them.
Is CAF America or GiveRadar better?
Neither, because they are different tools for different questions. CAF America is better at execution: compliant cross-border grants, managed giving vehicles, and validated grant eligibility, proven by over $4.6 billion in cumulative grants (as of July 2026) and roughly 6,000 grants a year per its Fidelity Charitable partner profile. GiveRadar is better at intelligence: free registry-sourced data on how a charity is run, an integrity assessment that cannot be bought, and monitoring via watchlists and change alerts. If your question is how do I get funds to this foreign charity, start with CAF America; if it is who is this organization and what do they disclose, start with GiveRadar.
What is the CAF International Validated Organization Badge, and how does it differ from GiveRadar's integrity assessment?
The CAF International Validated Organization Badge is a public seal that CAF America awards to organizations that pass a Grant Eligibility Application and a risk-based due diligence review covering governance, registration, financial statements, media presence, and board and staff background checks; vetted organizations display it on their websites (as of July 2026). It is a pass signal for grant eligibility, not a score. GiveRadar's integrity assessment is a 0-100 measure of public disclosure and governance signals, published on every charity GiveRadar covers, whether or not the organization asked for it. The badge tells you an organization cleared an intermediary's vetting; the integrity assessment tells you how much it discloses publicly. They answer different questions and can sensibly coexist on the same organization.
Does CAF America publish its fees, and does GiveRadar charge anything?
CAF America publishes no fee schedule for its giving and grantmaking services; the one public price point in its own materials is a $500 eligibility fee for foreign nonprofits when a donor has not covered the validation (per its eligibility-process guide, as of July 2026). Beyond that, its contribution policies direct prospective clients to contact it directly, and it states that donations are non-refundable. That is a normal model for an account-managed compliance service, but it means most costs are knowable only through a conversation. GiveRadar charges donors and charities nothing: the platform is free, charities cannot pay for placement or scores, and only high-volume API access has paid Pro and Enterprise tiers.
Other giving and data platforms compared
Check any charity's disclosure record, free
Search 7.9M+ nonprofits in 100+ countries. Research the charity here, then use an intermediary like CAF America to move the money.