By Frank Parlato
No Data. No Disclosure. Just a Grade That Sticks.
CharityWatch grades charities. A+ to F.
It states that it helps charitable individuals identify where to donate. The woman behind it is Laurie Styron. She works independently and is not a CPA.
Just a woman with a name: Charity Watch.
And a slogan: America’s most independent, assertive charity watchdog.
Laurie Styron, under her name CharityWatch, gives failing marks to big charities. When she does, the media publishes it. She knows how to get it out. The money stops. The damage done.
CharityWatch gave it an F.
She doesn’t rate most charities. Just a few. Only 600 out of more than a million and a half. No one knows why she picks the ones she does. No one knows how she scores them.
Other groups, the legit ones, like Charity Navigator, use data and public math. They use systems. They check their work. So does Candid, which used to be Guidestar. They rate hundreds of thousands of charities. They show their work. They have staff. They have oversight.
Styron doesn’t.
There is no CPA sign-off. No second set of eyes. No review. And people believe it. CharityWatch – big name, more aggressive than the rest.
Donors see the low grade and believe it. The media amplifies it. Why? Because a bad headline about a charity people thought was good is clickbait heaven.
Donors see the bad grade. They don’t know where or how the grade came from. No one does.
No one watches her. Not even the ones she watches.
Styron also appears to run a second business, Styron Consulting. It is, evidently, for profit. According to its website, Styron Consulting sells advice to the same kind of groups she grades.
How active it is, she doesn’t say.
Her pay at CharityWatch is also not disclosed – but since she is a one-woman show, it appears to be upward of $400,000. Not counting her private consulting work.
Some want to know who watches the watcher.
Discrepancies With Other Watchdog Ratings
Some excellent charities receive four stars or platinum ratings from Charity Navigator, Candid, or the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance.
A charity can meet every standard. They help people, animals, or the land. They file their papers. They tell the truth.
CharityWatch gives them an F.
Donors turn away.
One woman wrote the grade and moved on.
And somehow, the media listens. They publish the grade like it means something.
Featured Press
Newsweek:
“It’s the toughest of the bunch, rating more than 600 charities on a scale of A+ down to F. Because it disregards certain, potentially suspect, expenses and donations, it fails some nonprofits that the other raters approve.”
See the danger?
She cuts what she calls “potentially suspect.”
Just suspicion.
She doesn’t say it’s theft. She just doesn’t like it. So she fails the charity.
No trial. No evidence. Just a gut feeling.
The expense may make sense. Perhaps she doesn’t understand it.
NY Times:
CharityWatch “is the pit bull of watchdogs. Its staff members dig deeper than most other overseers, going to state and federal records to get information that charities do not volunteer, honing in on program efficiency and exposing abuses.”
But there is no staff. It’s just Styron.
She doesn’t dig. The records are public. Anyone can find them. Candid has them. They’re online.
She talks about efficiency, but it’s not about results. She doesn’t visit. She doesn’t call. She doesn’t ask the people whom the charity helped. She’s not an accountant.
She looks at numbers. She guesses what matters.
An untrained pit bull without a leash can be dangerous.
They Call it a Watchdog. But it Bites the Good Ones
Dreamchaser: F
Front Range: D
Paws of Honor: F
Pilots to the Rescue: D
Project K9 Hero: D
Redwings: D
SPCA: F
Tiger Creek: D
Tiger Haven: D
They fed horses. Saved dogs. Flew out of kill shelters. They filed their forms. They told the truth.
They got stars. They got Platinum. Bronze. Gold. From the real watchdogs—Navigator, Candid, the ones with rules.
Check out the website: CharityWatch.org.
After writing pages of innuendo about a charity she chose to grade, after twisting numbers, making conclusory allegations, and ignoring the law, Styron gives it a bad grade and then concludes the review with: “Donate to us.”
It’s not about donors. It’s not about truth. It’s about keeping the lights on — with someone else’s reputation.
That’s not watchdog work. That’s a hustle. A quiet shakedown in the name of “oversight.”
Laurie Styron says she’s independent. She runs Styron Consulting.
No one sees her books. She sells advice on the same things she uses to judge others: governance, Form 990s, and audits. The same things she claims make a charity good or bad.
She tells charities they must show everything. But shows nothing herself. No audit. No salary disclosures.
No one knows how she picks. Or how she scores. Why one gets an F and another doesn’t.
The media runs with it. Donors run away.
Then she asks for money.
Who Watches the Watchdog? Grading Charities While Dodging Scrutiny
If it were Wall Street, it’d be illegal. If it were Washington, it’d be a scandal.
It’s time she answered a few questions.
Did any graded charity pay Styron Consulting?
If yes, before or after the grade?
Did the grade change?
Was the charity removed from the watchlist?
Did any client of Styron Consulting suggest a competitor for review?
CharityWatch advocates for transparency. But she does not disclose her salary. No published ethics code. No client list. No audit. No oversight.
If a charity acted like this, she’d fail it.
It’s not about whether she’s guilty. It’s about whether donors can trust a watchdog that hides.
She’s a destructive risk, lacking charity herself, with a poisonous keyboard and an outsized platform—and no one is checking her work.
CharityWatch, under Laurie Styron, is the very problem she claims to solve.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
