How We Review

StackForGood reviews tools by starting from the decision a small nonprofit actually faces, then judging each option on whether it fits that situation and what it really costs. We check the true price, name who should skip a tool, look for the free or donated alternative that might beat it, and surface the catch the vendor page buries. We are a young site, so we will tell you plainly what we have judged from the evidence and what we have tested hands-on, and we will not pretend the two are the same.

Here is how we keep "we independently review everything we recommend" from being a slogan.

What we are actually judging

Most reviews judge a tool against its own feature list, which is the vendor's home turf. We judge it against your decision instead. The question we are answering is never "what can this software do," it is "should a small nonprofit in your position spend money on this, and if so which one." That reframing decides everything else, because a tool can be impressive and still be the wrong call for an organization that does not need it.

So we read every category from the reader's seat. A six-person food bank and a fifty-person health nonprofit face different decisions, and a recommendation that ignores which one you are is a brochure, not real advice.

What we check on every tool

Four things, every time:

• The real price. Not the headline number, but what you actually pay once you account for the tier you need, the add-ons that are not included, and the nonprofit discount if one exists.
• Who should skip it. Every recommendation names the organizations that should not buy, because a tool that is right for some is wrong for others, and saying so is the part vendors leave out.
• The free or donated alternative. Before we point you at anything paid, we look for the free tool, the donated nonprofit plan, or the option you already have, and we tell you when one of those is the better answer.
• The buried catch. The contract length, the price jump after year one, the feature that turns out to cost extra. We go looking for it on purpose.

We verify claims against primary sources rather than repeating them. When a vendor states a price or an eligibility rule, we check it against the vendor's own current pages, not against another listicle that may be years stale. Where we have used a tool hands-on, we say so. Where our view is reasoned from the evidence rather than from sitting inside the product, we say that too, and we do not dress one up as the other.

Free comes first

Free is our first check, not our fallback. In many categories, a good share of small organizations are better served by a free tool, a donated nonprofit plan, or simply waiting until they have a real need. A recommendation that costs you nothing is a valid result, and on plenty of our pages it is the headline answer. We would rather tell you to claim a free tier than sell you a subscription you will underuse.

How we keep it current

Pricing, eligibility, and program terms drift, sometimes within months, so currency is part of the method, not an afterthought. We cite primary sources, we hold ourselves to recent ones rather than whatever ranks, and we date the facts that move. Where a number is the kind that changes, we tell you to confirm it at the point of purchase, because the honest thing is to admit a figure has a shelf life. When we have not personally tested something, we mark it as judgment rather than implying a hands-on trial we did not run.

Where the money sits, and where it does not

We may earn a commission when you buy a tool through one of our links, and that is disclosed right next to the link every time. It does not move the verdict and it does not change the ranking. The pick is the pick whether it pays us or not, and some of our picks pay us nothing at all. The full explanation of how the money works lives on how we make money; what matters here is the firewall between what we earn and what we recommend.

When we change our minds

A recommendation is a snapshot, and snapshots go out of date. When a tool raises its price, drops the fit that made it our pick, or gets discontinued the way the popular grant tracker GrantHub was when its maker retired it, the recommendation changes with it. We would rather update a page than leave advice standing that we no longer believe. If you ever find a recommendation of ours that the facts have overtaken, that is a bug, and we want to fix it.

If you want to see the money side of this in full, read how we make money. If you would rather just get an answer for your own organization, start with the Discount Finder or the Advisor.