The GiveWell Blog

Enough about lives – how many dollars can we save?

I think most discussions of charity are way too fuzzy. Your standard fundraising proposal has several adorable pictures, a couple disturbing ones, and one or two numbers that seem to have been shouted in a moment of impassioned inspiration, with nary a source to be found. Then, though, there is the occasional economist/mathematician/cyborg who comes…

Read More

Network for what now?

Note: As of 2017, this blog post no longer represents GiveWell’s views on Network for Good. Help me understand this. For those of you whose browsers don’t support hyperlinks: Charity Navigator processes direct donations to charities using Network for Good, which processes credit cards and applies a fee of 4.75%. Charity Navigator claims that this…

Read More

NYC update: People still have problems

We met with New Visions for Public Schools on Friday afternoon. The contrast with the Children’s Aid Society meeting was instructive. CAS met us for lunch; New Visions met us in a conference room. (I like food, but I think we’re going to avoid lunch meetings in the future so we don’t end up with…

Read More

The big question: Is our project 1.0 or 2.0?

I’d like to open this post by thanking whatever visionary had the idea to start adding “2.0” to the end of everything. Benefits to society already include Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Office 2.0, Business 2.0, and Learning 2.0. I don’t really know what most of these are, but I can only assume that we’re now…

Read More