A plain-language summary of what's new on Charity Finder. Recent updates appear by date; older history is grouped from our public release notes.
Search, newsletters, and listing invitations
Directory search still finds a charity when the query includes a comma or brackets.
Leaving a newsletter stays in effect the next time you sign in.
An expired listing invitation no longer uses one of the five manager places.
Removing a financial statement file keeps that year's figures on the charity page.
Board pages, the full charity map, and a saved-charity spreadsheet
Directory
The map includes every Section 88 charity with a known location, and the introduction says how many that is. Organisations at the same address stay on one pin, and each name opens that listing. A charity page still shows a Google Map of that organisation’s own address.
Charity pages
About and mission can include bullet lists and numbered lists, and those lists show on the charity page. Suggesting a correction to About uses the same editor.
Governance lists board members when a listing has them. Each name opens a page of the organisations that list that person, and the role on each. The page says the person has not confirmed the role, and that it may no longer be current. Report this page is there if something is wrong. You need to be signed in to send a report.
How reviews work sits behind a help button beside Reviews: stars update straight away, a written comment appears after we review it, and your email is not shown.
Opening a comparison shows that it is loading. The compare page says comparison is still in early development, and links to Feedback if there is something you want to see there.
From your account, or from the directory while you are viewing saved charities, Download spreadsheet saves that list. A saved list holds 200 charities. The file includes the name, Chinese name, Charity Finder link, website, focus, beneficiaries, whether the listing is subvented or claimed, the latest annual report and financial statement, and the latest income, expenditure, surplus or deficit, donations, subvention funding, and net assets. Each figure keeps its year.
Manage listing shows one next step at a time: an about, a website or contact email, a logo, a category or beneficiary, an address, an annual report, and a financial statement. You can mark an address or a document as not available. Approved representatives add board members on the same page, and a board member is published when you click Add. The claim guide says the same.
Claiming a parent organisation covers that listing only. You can claim each subsidiary yourself. If there are many, we contact you after approval about managing them without a separate claim for each.
Guides and the rest of the site
The Feedback form fills in your email when you are signed in, and you can clear it. If you opened it from another page, it says it will include that address, and an error reference when there is one. You can leave those out.
Filters, filled-in charity pages, and a way to write in
Directory
On the directory, the old Has list now sits under More filters, in three groups. Listing: Claimed, or Filled-in profile. Documents: a report or statement, a financial statement, or an impact report. Contact: website, address, and phone, and you can tick more than one. Older links that used the previous Has list still open the same organisations.
On a directory card, Claimed, Delisted, Donate, and the star rating stay with the name. Category and Subsidiary sit under the short description.
Charity pages
A charity page shows an In depth mark beside the name when the listing has a description, a way to get in touch, and a report or financial statement. The mark describes how filled-in the page is. It is not a rating of the organisation. The directory filter calls the same listings Filled-in profile (More filters → Listing).
A charity page says whether the organisation receives ongoing Social Welfare Department funding, with a short explanation. The audit research guide says what that funding is.
When a charity has figures for more than one year, the financials section can show a chart of income, expenditure, and donations. Years are listed from the latest. Impact reports show the latest three, and older ones sit behind Earlier reports.
Account
An approved representative can invite a colleague from Manage listing. The colleague signs in with that email and can edit the listing the same way. Up to five people can manage one listing. Any of them can remove another, or leave. If the last person leaves, the listing is no longer claimed. The claim guide explains how inviting works.
New guide, Before you give: confirm the organisation is on the current section 88 list, match the Chinese and English names, give through the charity’s own page, and ask for a receipt. It is linked from the guides index, the directory, and the donations guide.
A Feedback page is for a bug, a page that is hard to use, or an idea. Corrections to a charity listing still go through Suggest a change. The footer, a missing page, and an unexpected error all link to it.
The completeness charts on Analytics are easier to read on a phone.
Directory, charity pages, and your account, rebuilt in one release
Directory
The directory no longer opens with a large centred banner. A compact title bar reads “Charity Finder — All of Hong Kong’s official tax-exempt charities, in one place,” and the listings start immediately underneath.
Live counts sit in that bar as small chips: charities, subsidiaries, total listings, organisations updated in the last 7 days, registered users, and visitors in the last 30 days.
Browsing without a search shows listings that have a real description, so cards are not blank. A search still returns every match, including organisations we know little about.
That day’s filters added two Has options: Claimed (an approved representative looks after the listing) and Reports (an annual report or a financial statement on the listing). Saved-charity counts use thousands separators.
Directory cards put the logo on a white tile. A Claimed badge sits beside the name and explains, on hover, that an approved representative looks after the listing. Category, subsidiary, delisted, donate, and star-rating chips use a smaller, consistent style.
Two category names are clearer in filters and on cards: “Arts, Culture & Humanities” and “Public & Societal Benefit”. Existing filters still match the same organisations.
Charity pages
On a charity page, approved representatives can publish Volunteer, Events, and Careers buttons. Each button uses the charity’s own link and an optional label (otherwise Volunteer, Events, or Careers). Charity Finder does not take registrations, sell tickets, or host applications.
A donate or crowdfunding button appears on the charity page when the charity has turned one on. The same link can appear next to that charity in your saved list, so you can support it without opening the full page. Payments still happen on the charity’s own page.
The claim button on a charity page tells you where things stand: confirm your email, claim under review, or resubmit after a rejection. The claim guide explains each state.
A Claimed badge on the charity page opens a short explanation and a link to the claim guide. A Subsidiary badge explains that a branch, school, fund, or project usually shares its parent’s legal structure and tax exemption. The charity structures guide says more.
Parent charity pages list related organisations in a tree you can expand. Long lists start collapsed. A delisted subsidiary is marked as such. Chinese names are shown when we have them.
Charity pages with several sections get a table of contents. It only lists sections that exist for that charity, such as About, Contact, Subsidiaries, Organisation, Aliases, Focus areas, Governance, Funding, Video intro, Financials, Subvention, Past funding, Impact reports, News feed, and Other.
News feed, when a charity publishes one, shows each item’s title, date, and a short excerpt, and links out to the original post. A note says email, social media, and the rest of the website may be more current.
Audited financial statements use the same heading style as the rest of the charity page. You can still open a year, read the figures, and download the statement when we have one.
Star ratings sit beside the charity name. The average and the number of ratings are written out, large counts use thousands separators, and a failed save tells you to try again. If you are signed out, “Sign in to rate” sits next to the stars.
Saving or unsaving a charity tells you when it did not go through, including if you need to sign in again.
Account
If an email sign-in link has expired or was already used, the login page says so and asks you to request a new one, instead of showing a raw error.
Your account is split into Activity, Profile, and Security tabs. Activity shows open claims and their status (awaiting email confirmation, pending review, rejected with the reason, or approved with a link to manage the listing), suggestions you sent (the field, your proposal, and a reason when one was not applied), saved charities, and listings you manage. Applied suggestions link to the contributor leaderboard.
The Profile tab is where you set the name shown for you as a contributor, and whether you want Charity Finder and Grant Finder email updates.
Security is where you change the email you sign in with (we email a confirmation link before it takes effect), choose a new password, or delete your account. Deleting your account removes your login, saved charities, ratings, and listing access. Public charity pages stay online, including listings you had edited. Privacy & Terms says the same.
Analytics and other pages
Analytics used to be eight separate pages: Coverage, Category breakdown, Totals, Data completeness, Top beneficiaries, Transparency, Social media, and Miscellaneous. Those are now three pages that each load on their own. Directory covers how charities are tagged by category and beneficiary. Completeness covers how much of each listing is filled in. Footprint covers transparency flags, social links, documents, and other collected URLs. The overview says what each page contains. Older analytics links still open the matching section, and a section shows a waiting state while its charts load.
Missing pages explain that the address may have moved and offer a way back to the directory or About. An unexpected error lets you try again or go home, and shows a short reference when we have one. Buttons, filters, and form labels across the site use stronger contrast so they are easier to read.
Research briefings for funders
New Research page for foundations, CSR teams, and advisers who want a written briefing on named Hong Kong charities. Search, charity pages, compare, the map, published financial figures, and claiming a listing all stay free. Nothing on the public directory moves behind a paywall.
A briefing is assembled for the organisations you name. Typical contents are identity and IRD status, governance notes, financial figures where we already have sources, funding history from Grant Finder, and the gaps we could not fill.
You choose what you need. A public-sources briefing uses Charity Finder, Grant Finder, and the charity’s own website, with no government filing fees. A company pack adds official Companies Registry documents obtained for that engagement when the organisation is a Hong Kong company. Those per-file fees are quoted before anything is purchased, and the files are not republished on Charity Finder. Societies, trusts, and statutory bodies often have no such file, and the briefing says so. You can also ask us to say what is available before you choose.
The request form asks for your name, organisation, work email, the charities to cover (names or Charity Finder links), and optional context such as due diligence or a partnership. There is no checkout on the page. We reply by email to agree scope, timing, and any filing fees before work starts. The confirmation says this is not a donation receipt.
The Donate page and the audit research guide say the same thing in short: supporting Shared Data is separate from commissioning a briefing, and we do not buy government filings in order to republish the files themselves.
Real descriptions, not placeholders
Directory cards, compare, and charity pages no longer show the old “limited information exists about this charity” note. When that was the only text, the about section stays hidden instead of looking like a description.
Contributor leaderboard and a claim guide
New contributor leaderboard, ranked by suggestions that have been applied to charity listings. Only signed-in contributions count, and your account links to the board.
New guide on claiming your charity listing: what to prepare, how email confirmation and review work, and what you can publish once approved — including a donate or crowdfunding link, a logo, reports, and contact details.
Approved representatives see a completeness checklist on Manage listing: a percentage, the fields still missing, and a note that nothing is locked by the score. Donate links, documents, and the rest can still be added after the core fields look complete.
The figures along the top of the directory sit in a tighter row, so charity counts and recent activity are easier to read at a glance.
An account home, a newsletter, and more ways in
New account page for people who are signed in: saved charities, open claims, suggestions you have sent, listings you manage, your display name, and email preferences.
You can change the email on your account (confirmed by a link we send you) and set a new password from Security.
The header has an account menu for your account, saved charities, charities you manage, and sign out — including on phones.
A newsletter signup sits on the directory page. Confirm by email — no account required — and you can unsubscribe from Charity Finder, Grant Finder, or both without affecting claim or account messages.
The directory page shows how many people have registered and how many visitors came in the last 30 days, alongside the charity counts.
Suggesting a change starts with a search of the directory, so the correction is attached to the right organisation. If you open the form from a charity page, it names that organisation and the back link returns you there.
If you suggest a change or claim a listing, we email you as that submission moves forward.
Clearer recovery when a page fails
A missing page now explains that the address may have moved and offers a way back to the directory or About.
If something unexpected goes wrong, you can try again or return home, with a short reference if we have one.
www.charity-finder.org opens the same site as charity-finder.org, so shared links land in one place.
Claim and manage your charity listing
Representatives can claim a charity listing with a registration certificate and email verification. The claim guide explains what to prepare.
Once approved, approved representatives can update the charity page and its documents.
Charity pages show when a listing has been claimed, with a clear path to claim or manage access.
Clearer map when charities share a location
The map groups organisations at the same coordinates into one marker and lists them in the popup, so overlapping pins are easier to browse.
Public changelog, suggestions, and account recovery
Added this Changelog page (linked from the footer) so you can see what’s new.
Suggesting a change to a charity listing is more reliable, including when you attach supporting files.
The login page includes a Forgot password? path so you can reset access more easily.
Faster pages across the site
The directory, charity pages, map, compare view, and sitemap load more quickly for everyday browsing.
Star ratings on charity pages load more smoothly.
Richer charity pages and easier navigation
Charity pages can show Chinese descriptions, WhatsApp contact links, and newsletter sign-up links when available.
Keyboard users can skip straight to the main content with a skip link.
Clearer loading states while charity, compare, and map pages fetch their data.
Old charity links continue to resolve to the right organisation where possible.
Better visibility in search engines
Improved how charity pages and guides appear in search results, including structured information for search engines.
