The GiveWell Blog

Philanthropy Action’s coverage of microfinance conference

Donors interested in microfinance shouldn’t miss the recent posts by Philanthropy Action. Note that Philanthropy Action is co-edited by Timothy Ogden, a member of our Board of Directors. The coverage discusses papers that we don’t yet see at Innovators for Poverty Action (co-host of the conference and a favorite source of ours). To me the…

Read More

Clarification on previous post

As a reminder, our blog is a personal and informal forum, and does not represent the official views of GiveWell. Our About This Blog page states: While our main site features researched and edited content, aiming to present all our information in a neutral way for you to make your own decisions, our blog is…

Read More

No on Prop 8: High-ROI donation opportunity?

I gave to a group fighting Proposition 8 in California because it struck me as a really good opportunity to make a difference with a donation. This is about as far from our normal focus as it gets, and I don’t have nearly the knowledge of political advocacy that I would like to have, so…

Read More

Research mailing list

GiveWell has maintained a mailing list since late July that we use to share our notes on research in progress. The emails tend to be more detailed and less theme-driven than blog posts, and the volume tends to be higher (averaging around an email a day, except when we’re heavily focused on non-research aspects of…

Read More

More counterintuitiveness in health education

This book excerpt (via Overcoming Bias) suggests that stressing the health benefits of latrines can be less effective than stressing the pride benefits of “feel[ing] royal, because the royal family had one.” Also mentions that the Community-Led Total Sanitation program (which we’ve discussed before) stresses “disgust” over safety concerns. More evidence that health education can…

Read More