Perhaps the best way to celebrate World Sight Day is by becoming part of the solution. Want to help but not sure how? There are dozens of great vision charities out there. How do you pick one to support?
I’ve selected my top 3 vision charities to support in 2020 based on the following criteria:
- The Stated Mission
I like knowing what a charity plans to do with my donation. Having a clear goal and mission statement makes it easy to imagine the impact of helping out. - Percentage of Donation Used for Change
We’ve all heard of bad charities that end up spending more on themselves than they do to help others. A good vision chairty, then, is transparent about how they use your donation. As much money as possible should get into the hands of the needy. - How They Rank With Watchdog Groups
Thankfully there are groups that analyse and watch over the chairities of the world. They give nonprofit organizations grades based on how effective they are in making positive change. And all 3 vision charities I’ve chosen rank highly with multiple charity evaluation groups.
Whichever charity you choose to support, you can’t go wrong with the following 3 vision charities:
1. SightSavers
In 1986, British children’s TV program Blue Peter started a fundraiser for the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (RCSB) vision charity. Their goal was admirable: raise £100,000 to help fund mobile eye centers in Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania.
In just 9 weeks, Blue Peter‘s “Sight Savers” charity drive raised £1 million and would go on to raise a total of £2 million – 20 times their original goal. As a result, millions of at-risk Africans were able to have their sight restored by preventative medicine and cataract operations.
The RCSB was so impressed that they changed their name. And they’ve been called SightSavers ever since.
Success So Far:
- Operates in 30 countries, with a focus on the developing regions of Africa and Asia.
- 1 billion treatments of neglected tropical diseases to date. That’s an average of almost 5 treatments per second.
- Have provided over 7 million free cataract surgeries
- 11 million free eye exams and over 140 million treatments to prevent disease in the past year alone.
- SightSavers plans to eliminate trachoma in 10 African countries by 2023 – a goal that billionaire Richard Branson supported with a £100 million fund.
Watchdog Rating:
SightSavers is currently listed as a top rated vision charity on Givewell.org. They earned that honor with their efforts to treat and prevent vision impairment from schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH).
How Your Dollar Is Spent:
According to SightSavers, a $7 donation pays for the cataract surgery of a child in need. $14 pays for the trachoma operations of two patients. Futhermore, $21 gets treatment to 720 families currently losing their sight to river blindness.
Givewell.org estimates that SightSaver’s deworming program prevents vision impairment and blindness by treating schistosomiasis for as little as $0.91 per child.
2. OneSight
Before OneSight, the whole 2 million citizens of Gambia had access to only 1 optometrist.
They now have 7 vision centers and their own manufacturing lab.
Thanks to the efforts of OneSight and their volunteers, now all of Gambia has permanent access to eye care. Even Gambian president Adama Barrow was fitted with his first pair of glasses in a OneSight Vision Center.
What makes OneSight different than other vision charities is their sustainability mission. OneSight creates permanent vision centers in developing countries. They also run charitable clinics to give free eye exams and prescription glasses to thousands of kids and adults from the United States to China and India.
The result is training for permanent eyecare jobs in the very communities that they impact. OneSight works with local universities and hospitals to provide the education and infastructure needed to keep their vision centers running for generations after the volunteers have gone home.
Success So Far:
- Impacted over 27 million people in 53 countries
- 180 sustainable, community-run vision centers that serve over 22 million people
- 1,944 charity clinics that have provided free eye exams to 6,892,517 people worldwide
Watch Dog Rating:
CharityNavigator gives OneSight their top 4-star rating, with especially high scores for accountability and transparency.
How Your Dollar Is Spent:
OneSight says that a $30 donation gives a free eye exam and a pair of prescription glasses to someone in need. And according to CharityNavigator, 73.9% of every dollar you donate gets into the hands of those who need it.
Another way to support OneSight is with Amazon Smile. Just click this link to shop through Amazon’s charitable giving program and you can support this cause with every order, with no extra cost to you.
3. Helen Keller International
The oldest charity on this list, Helen Keller International (HKI) has been helping to prevent blindness and visual impairment for over 100 years.
Helen Keller International was founded in 1915 by (guess who?) Helen Keller and a wealthy philantropist named George Kessler. Kessler was a passenger on the RMS Lusitania – the ship sunk by a German U-boat in the early days of WWI. As Kessler escaped on a liferaft, he swore to dedicate the rest of his life to helping others.
Helen Keller was already a famous social and political activist. After a childhood illness, she was both deaf and blind. She did much more than lend her name to Kessler’s nonprofit. She campaigned tirelessly around the world, in 35 countries, on behalf of the vision impaired until the day she died.
Success So Far
- Provides training to surgeons who continue to treat thousands of cases of cataracts every year
- Provided free eye exams for 92,060 of the poorest Americans and gave 20,588 of them free corrective eye glasses just last year
- Treated 10s of millions of people for preventable diseases that can impair vision
- In the last 15 years, Helen Keller gave free vision screenings to over 2 million kids in the USA and 300,000 free corrective eye glasses
- Operates in 21 countries
Watchdog Rating
CharityWatch gives Helen Keller International an ‘A’ rating for their level of transparency and the high percentage of donation dollars used on charitable programs. That rating makes it one of the highest ranking charities analyzed by the website.
Likewise, Helen Keller International is one of the highest ranking charities on Givewell.org. They specifically endorse the HKI vitamin A supplementation program which works to reduce malnutrition and avert blindness and poor vision in Sub-Saharan Africa.
CharityNavigator gives Helen Keller International their top 4 star rating, with a 97/100 for accountablity and transparency.
How Your Dollar Is Spent
For just $1.23, Helen Keller International is able to get their vitamin A supplement to someone who needs it in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s according to charity watchdog Givewell.org.
For every dollar donated, $0.82 makes it to those who need it.
Got a favorite vision charity?
Have you donated to any of the charities above? Or do you know of a different vision charity worthy of support?
Let me know!
