The GiveWell Blog

Why are you reading this?

For nearly a year now, we’ve been talking about creating the world’s first truly useful donor resource: one that goes beyond naive and meaningless metrics like “how much of my money goes to program”? and instead looks at what charities do and whether it works. It’s not an idea anymore, it’s a product. It exists…

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Where should you give?

When you’re donating, do you want a “safe and reputable” charity – or the best? From fighting disease in Africa to improving inner-city education, helping people isn’t simple – for charities OR for donors. That’s why it isn’t enough to know that “99% of your money goes to programs.” (In fact, we think it’s often…

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3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

This Monday, we will release the beta for the product we’ve been promising since day one: a full account of what charities we recommend, and why, in five different humanitarian causes. (Only one cause will be available at first, but the others will come online within 5-10 weeks.) I blogged yesterday only because I had…

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“Dollars per life changed” metric: What is it good for?

Many moons ago, I listed the metrics we planned to use in evaluations. Well, here’s a shocker for you: when looking at actual charities’ activities, the reality is 10,000x as complicated as anything that can fit into these metrics. We always knew we would run into the following problem: if Charity A saves 100 people…

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Another frustrating article about fixing education

Eduwonkette (if you’re interested in the cause of education, stop reading so many philanthropy blogs and subscribe to Eduwonkette) links to an exciting-sounding article about a series of innovative charter schools. Imagine how excited I get by a passage like this: “On graduation rates, on test scores, on teacher pay — on just about anything…

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