The GiveWell Blog

What’s in it for me

Today is my first day of working full-time for the Clear Fund. (Technically, since payroll doesn’t start until June, it’s my first day of unemployment.) It’s easy to talk about ditching money for meaning, not so easy to do it. And there’s a lot more I’ve walked away from than money. The job situation I’ve…

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Do any charities know what they’re doing?

Do any charities know what they’re doing? We think so. In fact, we’re banking on it. GiveWell’s mission is to help steer capital and foster dialogue, and that’s it. We plan to give grants the same way we’ve given our personal donations: look for charities that already have proven, effective, scalable ways of helping people…

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Spending the better half

Our fundraising efforts have started, and dang, do I hate asking for money. For three years, I’ve had way more income than I can spend, and I’ve rarely had to ask anyone for anything. That’s a nice position to be in. This – especially for an abrasive guy like me – is tough. A common…

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Nice guys finish last

In addition to ~20 charity/philanthropy/social-goodliness blogs, I read one blog, TechCrunch, about for-profit Internet startups. I’d say I see about 10x as much negativity, sarcasm, skepticism, and criticism on TechCrunch as on those 20 improve-the-world blogs combined. That’s why I like TechCrunch. If you check out the front page now, you’ll see TechCrunch questioning Google’s…

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