UK = United Kingdom
UN = United Nations
US = United States

... Adventist Development & Relief Agency International
... American Red Cross
... AmeriCares
... AusAID
... Baptist World Aid
... B'nai B'rith International
... Canadian International Development Agency
... Canadian Red Cross
... CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere)
... Catholic Relief Services
... Christian Aid
... Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
... Church World Service
... Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres
... Episcopal Relief & Development
... Human Relief Fund
... International Medical Corps
... International Orthodox Christian Charities
... International Red Cross and Red Crescent
... International Relief Teams
... International Rescue Committee
... Islamic Aid
... Islamic Relief
... Lutheran World Relief
... Medical Assistance Programs (MAP) International

 Finding Each Other: 

       ... International Committee of the Red Cross
       ... Next of Kin Registry

 War News: 

       ... BBC
       ... Other Sources

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On the whole, ratings are a good thing.  But when choosing charities to which you're going to donate money, be aware that the efficiency ratings assigned to charities by watchdog groups can be misleading.  More important is a charity's effectiveness in getting aid to victims.

For example, Charity A may dedicate 95% of received donations to direct material aid and only 5% to administration and fundraising, which is supposedly a good efficiency rating.  But a good efficiency rating means nothing if 5% isn't enough money to get the other 95% to victims where and when they need it.  The 95% has to be not only raised to begin with, but properly administered, properly managed.  Otherwise it simply sits in Charity A's bank account, perhaps collecting interest, but definitely not providing water, food, medicine, clothing, shelter, counselling, and other aid to the victims, immediately and directly.

Charity B, on the other hand, may dedicate 20% of your donation to administration and fundraising, but that 20% may very well be competently, efficiently providing the other 80% of your donation to victims within a day after you've given it, or even within hours, in the form of water, food, medicine, clothing, shelter, counselling, and other aid.  Charity B's so-called efficiency rating by a watchdog group may not be as high as Charity A's, but Charity B is a much more effective provider of aid.  And, arguably, the more effective an aid group is, the more efficient it actually is, too, watchdog ratings and their definitions notwithstanding.

Take Oxfam, for example (with which we have no affiliation, by the way).  You may look at efficiency ratings for Oxfam and scratch your head skeptically.  Yet Oxfam is clearly and provably among the best relief-and-recovery aid organizations in the world, and it has been for decades.

Therefore, don't automatically dismiss charities because their so-called efficiency ratings aren't as high as others'.  Judge them also by their histories, reputations, and overall effectiveness.  Finding out what's an effective, reputable charity is homework quickly and easily done.  There are an awful lot of terrific aid organizations doing wonderful and effective work even though they don't meet the standards of what Watchdog X or Watchdog Y considers efficient.
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