Frequently Asked Questions

Why are you called Kinder — isn’t that a chocolate brand? 

You’re right, there is an Italian brand called Kinder, which makes delicious chocolate. But we are kʌɪn-der, not kɪn-der. As in the English word meaning: “more kind”. Kinder also rhymes with blinder, reminder, winder, and look behind her. 

We chose this name because we believe the charity world needs a shakeup. That there’s a Kinder way to do good. One that thinks about the impact and effectiveness of giving. And one that works together. So you can do good, better.

What does Kinder do?

We’re a donation platform that evaluates charities. The charities you find on Kinder need to pass our evaluation to receive donations. In our evaluation, we look at everything from organisational skills, to transparency, to accountability.

We want to help you fall in love with the act of giving. To trust in the power of this magical act — the human impulse that makes you so special. With Kinder, you can trust that any charity you donate to has a stellar plan, and that they’re working hard to be as effective as they can. They can put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. 

We see the evaluations as a collaboration. Our research team helps charities to improve over time. They didn’t pass the evaluation the first time? No sweat. We give them pointers on how to improve so they can try again. We’re invested in their success. 

What’s your legal status?

Kinder is divided into a non-profit foundation and a for-profit social enterprise. We chose this split to protect our mission. The foundation ensures the independence needed for objective research and journalism, and the for-profit enterprise helps us grow and sustain ourselves.

How are you funded?

We are funded by private investors. Our fast-growing team is a mixture of young professionals, eager interns, and volunteers. Are you interested in joining our team and building a Kinder world with us? Check out our vacancies.

Blog articles

What are the blog articles on Kinder World?

If you like saying “I’ve never thought about it that way before” — our blog is for you. Our articles offer you a window into the issues charities tackle every day; from climate change, to women’s rights, to health and sanitation. 

Our amazing team of volunteer writers write snackable daily content about the people and projects making the world a better place, from a fresh perspective — to help you discover your favourite organisations and passion areas. And hopefully learn some new things along the way.

Can I submit an article or become a volunteer writer myself? 

Absolutely! We’re always keen to meet people who can deliver information in an interesting way. You can apply here.

Donation tools

How do I find charities to donate to through Kinder?

There are two ways to find charities to donate to on Kinder World (our website). You can either hop into the search bar and type in the name of an organisation or cause you’re interested in. Click on ‘Learn more’ to go to the charity page, where you’ll find more information about the problems they are trying to solve, and the solutions they’re using. 

You can also discover charities through our blog articles. We do our best to recommend top performing charities that are addressing the issues being described. In each article you’ll either find a widget, where you can donate to a featured charity directly, or a relevant United Action to donate to. 

What is a United Action?

United Actions are curated collections of top-performing charities, all tackling the same urgent problem from different angles. Donating to a United Action means tackling a problem with several solutions — to make your money as effective as possible. Find out more about how United Actions Work here.

Can I donate to charitable organisations that use other currencies?

No problem! You can donate in Euro, US Dollar or British Pound, which we will exchange to the currency of the receiving organisation if needed. For this transaction, our Payment Processor Mollie B.V. applies an exchange rate of 2%. 

Why does Kinder charge a service fee to the receiving organisation?

In order to be able to operate sustainably, Kinder has to charge the receiving organisation a small service fee on donations (max. 10%). This service fee is much smaller than the amount the charitable organisation would have to invest to attract donors by itself. As a result, their overhead costs drop, and more money goes to their interventions. 

My preferred organisation isn't on Kinder World. What should I do?

If you really feel that there is an interesting organisation out there that we should write about and allow donations to, please reach out to us with your suggestion. As long as the organisation passes our evaluation we are happy to have them.

Is Kinder just another evil tech company that will sell or misuse my data?

No, you are safe with us. We will never sell your data to any charitable organisation or third party. As a user, you remain anonymous with the receiving organisation, and you can even decide to donate without leaving your email address. Check our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more information.

Research and evaluation

How do the Kinder evaluations work?

Our evaluation framework was developed with professors, specialists in impact and development, and leading industry thinkers across the globe. 

Together we looked at the key areas impactful charities tend to excel. Areas like transparency (do they explain how they’re spending their money?), accountability (do they follow through on their promises?) and organisational skills (do they have a thorough plan?).

Our specialist team of researchers go through each charity with a fine tooth comb during the evaluations, which have two phases. Passing the first — the Basic Analysis— is a prerequisite to receiving donations on the platform. In this phase we focus on the areas of transparency, organisational skills, and accountability.

The second phase is called the ‘In Depth Analysis’. As the name suggests, it’s more thorough. We deep dive into charities’ programmes, their plans, their research and data, and the ethical underpinnings of their work. 

We turn both these evaluations into a report on the Charity Zone — our portal for charities — so they can see where they are performing well, and where they can improve. Charities can benchmark themselves against other organisations in the industry, to see how they’re doing. Passing these evaluations shows donors that charities are earnestly committed to transparency, accountability, and impact.

Why do you evaluate charities?

Evaluating charities addresses two problems at once. Firstly, it gives charities much needed support to improve over time. Secondly, it gives donors (that’s you!) confidence that their money is being used in the most effective way possible. Inspired by the school of effective altruism, we realise that to have maximum impact, charities need to measure their performance much more rigorously. 

How can I be sure that the evaluations are independent and reliable?

We collaborated with the Impact Center Erasmus of Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Center for Advanced Hindsight of Duke University to create our evaluation framework. We safeguard the process by carefully selecting our evaluators, and assigning only those with a proven track record of success with important tasks. When evaluators have a personal connection to a particular charity, they are not allowed to do the assessment.

Why doesn't Kinder just check the financials, salaries, and overhead costs of charitable organisations to assess their performance?

We do check them! But we dig deeper. Salaries and overhead costs alone will not tell you how effective a charity is.

Picture this: you are deciding whether to donate to charity A or B. A has no overheads thanks to sponsorships and volunteering. B has an overhead of 40%. A looks better, right? 

What if we told you that A hands out medicine that only suppresses the symptoms of a disease — while B distributes an actual cure. Would you still go for A? This is why we do our evaluations. Because when you dig a little deeper, you start to see the real impact. We want to make sure you have all the information, so you donate to the A’s of the world. The ones with the best solutions. 

Haven’t these charity evaluations already been done by other platforms — or by the charities themselves?

In a nutshell, no. Other evaluation frameworks tend to focus too narrowly on efficiency, and don’t consider other important things like cost-effectiveness or involving local communities. Organisations like GiveWell, produce quite a small list from their evaluations. We want to be more inclusive, and shine a light on some of the smaller organisations doing impactful work, rather than large organisations with plenty of resources. Our goal is to get as many charities through our evaluations as possible.

Most charities do not pass our evaluations the first time — although we hope this will change, as the charity sector becomes more transparent. Many smaller organisations do not yet have the resources, support, or guidance to meet our evaluation criteria. That’s where we come in. We give them the helping hand they need to excel, because we’re invested in their success.

Investors, charitable organisations and partners

  • We still have 2-3 tickets available for impact investors to join our ride.
  • Is your organisation on the Kinder platform? If you’ve been evaluated, we can answer questions about your results and help you improve your benchmarks. 
  • Would you like to be evaluated? Get in touch and we will add you to the next batch of evaluations. 
  • Are you a corporate or media partner wanting to collaborate? We have many options to choose from.


For all of the above, shoot our founder Mathys Van Abbe a message through LinkedIn or send us an email through our contact page.