According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), there are more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations registered in the U.S. alone. With so many organizations doing such great work in the world, how does one stand out in the crowd? How does a nonprofit become an internationally-recognized center of do-gooding? How do they get thousands or millions of likes/followers on social media?

Of course, the answer will vary widely depending on the organization. Some nonprofits like the American Red Cross or National Geographic have been around for over 100 years, and others like charity:water and Kiva have been operating for a little over a decade. What these organizations do have in common, however, is that they have a powerful presence in the world and have done a great job translating that presence online.

So we thought, why not coming up with a list of great nonprofits? Not just for their mission statements, or vision statements, or their social media profiles, but a combination of what makes these nonprofits so successful online. As a result, we put together a list of 50 nonprofits that shine online, and the following criteria is how we’ve computed our list:

  • Around 100 organizations were evaluated, and the top 50 were published.
  • Each organization’s Ahrefs Rank, Domain Rating, URL Rating, and Backlinks number were taken directly from Ahrefs.com.
  • Social data was collected for each nonprofit for Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers.
  • A composite rank for each nonprofit was determined by ⅔ weight to Ahrefs website rankings (Ahrefs Rank, Domain Rating, URL Rating, and Backlinks) and ⅓ weight to social media (Likes and Followers).
  • All data was collected as of September 2017.
  • Scroll down to see what each element entails.

# Nonprofit Ahrefs Rank Domain Rating URL Rating Backlinks facebook-iconLikes twitter-iconFollowers
1 National Geographic Society 399 76 89 14.2M 44.7M 18.9M
2 Operation Blessing International 113,368 57 57 32.4K 2.1M 650K
3 TED Talks 288 77 89 34.1M 10.3M 10.3M
4 To Write Love on Her Arms 52,183 60 81 459K 1.5M 294K
5 NPR 278 77 88 121M 6.1M 7.2M
6 Unicef 1,075 88 72 17.8M 6.9M 6.3M
7 WikiLeaks 4,700 68 86 47.6M 3.8M 4.96M
8 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association 19,617 63 83 459K 2.4M 104K
9 Museum of Modern Art 1,931 71 87 6.01M 2M 5.08M
10 Livestrong 15,567 64 84 718K 1.6M 1.02M
11 Human Rights Watch 2,481 70 87 14.6M 2.5M 3.4M
12 Teach for America 20,278 63 84 112K 244K 151K
13 Water.org 18,444 63 83 148K 144K 778K
14 American Red Cross 649 74 88 1.41M 794K 4.8M
15 Metropolitan Museum of Art 2,031 70 88 10.8M 1.9M 3.64M
16 Save the Children 5,608 67 86 886K 1.8M 2.84M
17 DoSomething 10,256 65 84 338K 2.5M 811K
18 The MET 2,031 70 78 12.1M 1.9M 3.5M
19 CARE 13,167 64 84 949K 578K 1.3M
20 PETA 4,490 68 50 51.9K 5.3M 1.02M
21 Disabled American Veterans 14,241 64 83 920K 1.5M 92.5K
22 One 11,805 65 56 606K 1.2M 1.7M
23 YMCA 16,956 63 84 1.16M 349K 35.1K
24 The World Bank 627 74 89 72.1M 2.3M 2.5M
25 The UN Refugee Agency 2,167 70 85 56.1M 2.4M 2.2M
26 PBS 450 75 57 47.9M 3.5M 2.3M
27 Ronald McDonald House Charities 13,558 64 83 212K 964K 33.7K
28 Gates Foundation 4,867 68 87 1.27M 1.4M 1.8M
29 Human Rights Campaign 5,214 67 85 2.38M 2.6M 795K
30 Cleveland Clinic 4,104 68 84 977K 2.1M 1.2M
31 ACLU 3,061 69 87 8.43M 2.2M 1.3M
32 WWF 3,062 69 86 2.26M 2.3M 1.2M
33 Monterery Bay Aquarium 11,436 65 84 969K 786K 110K
34 Doctor’s Without Borders 6,221 67 86 1.91M 1.4M 962K
35 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2,167 70 85 56.1M 1.8M 1.7M
36 Compassion International 11,354 65 83 1.88M 427K 222K
37 Samaritan’s Purse 5,704 67 84 976K 1.4M 936K
38 Smithsonian Institute 811 73 87 13.4M 560K 2.65M
39 The Humane Society 2,743 69 86 5.17M 2.6M 674K
40 Conservation International Foundation 10,985 65 84 582K 361K 133K
41 International Rescue Committee 9,183 65 85 1.09M 600K 387K
42 Mercy Corps 10,688 65 84 3.32M 192K 245K
43 The Trevor Project 9,982 65 85 997K 331K 261K
44 New York Public Library 3,417 69 80 1.74M 274K 2.18M
45 World Food Progam 3,435 69 86 2.3M 880K 1.51M
46 Charity: water 4,758 68 85 424K 361K 1.5M
47 Amnesty International 2,647 69 87 13.1M 1.7M 985K
48 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 3,554 69 85 2.14M 2.1M 427K
49 Mayo Clinic 559 75 88 12.2M 1M 1.7M
50 Art Institute of Chicago 7,944 66 85 3.45M 486K 272K

Ahrefs Rank:

Ahrefs ranks websites based on the size and quality of their backlink profile. The website with the strongest backlink profile is ranked #1. Note: if your backlink profile is growing, but Ahrefs Rank is going down – this means that sites next to you are growing at a higher pace.

Domain Rating:

Domain Rating shows how strong a backlink profile of a target website is on a scale from 1 to 100 (with the latter being the strongest). Backlinks from sites with higher DR carry more “weight”.

URL Rating:

URL Rating shows how strong a backlink profile of a target URL is on a scale from 1 to 100 (with the latter being the strongest). This metric has the highest correlation with Google rankings, which means that pages with higher UR tend to rank better in organic results.

Backlinks:

Shows the total number of backlinks pointing to a target website or URL. Not to be confused with number of linking pages, as one page can contain multiple backlinks.

Social Media Likes and Followers

Show the total number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers for the organization.

 

 


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