The problem
Most people want to donate. But decision fatigue kills charitable giving. There are over 1.3 million registered charities in the United States alone, and 92% of them operate on less than $1 million per year. These small organizations do incredible, life-changing work — but they never get discovered because all the attention goes to a handful of mega-charities.
The idea
randomcharity.com is a discovery engine for micro-charities. We curated a database of 119 researched, high-impact organizations across 15 cause areas — from malaria prevention to animal welfare to homelessness — and made it dead simple to find one you've never heard of. Every charity has its own profile page with independent ratings, tax status and sources.
Pick a cause or go fully random. Spin. Discover. Donate directly on their site. We don't handle your money. We don't take a cut. We just connect you with charities that deserve your attention.
Why these charities?
Every organization in our database is a registered nonprofit with a working donation page. We prioritize charities with strong ratings from independent evaluators like Charity Navigator, GiveWell, CharityWatch, and Animal Charity Evaluators. We look for high program expense ratios — meaning more of every dollar goes to actual programs, not overhead.
We also deliberately include local community organizations serving Appalachian Ohio and Medellín, Colombia alongside global charities. Because impact doesn't require scale — sometimes a volunteer-run food pantry in a rural county changes more lives per dollar than a billion-dollar foundation.
Causes across the spectrum
People give for different reasons, so we list causes from across the political spectrum — including Liberal Causes and Conservative Causes with the same number of organizations in each — alongside Black Excellence, a cause for organizations expanding opportunity and justice for Black communities. Inclusion is never an endorsement. Where an advocacy group has both a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4) arm, the profile tells you exactly which one you're giving to and whether it's tax-deductible.
How we research profiles
Every profile was researched from primary sources — the charity's own site, IRS filings via ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, and evaluator pages such as Charity Navigator, GiveWell, CharityWatch, Animal Charity Evaluators and Giving Green. Ratings are only shown when we could confirm them, each links to the evaluator's live page, and every profile lists its sources. When a charity changes — a rebrand, a merger, a lost tax exemption — we update or remove it.
How we're different
We don't process donations. We don't store your payment info. We don't track your giving. We're not a fundraising platform. We're a discovery tool. When you click "Donate," you go directly to the charity's own website. That's it.
No middleman. No fees. No guilt trips. Just discovery.
Who built this
randomcharity.com was built by a small team that believes giving should be easy, fun, and focused on the organizations that need it most. We're based between Appalachian Ohio and Medellín, Colombia — which is why you'll find local organizations from both regions in our database.
Have questions, suggestions, or want to recommend a charity? Get in touch.