What’s important to us is first and foremost that an organization shares the information necessary to get a sense for how its work is going. That enables us to at least make the best bet possible. The reason I don’t donate to Gates (aside from its request that people not donate) is that it shares so little information. But I think expecting there to be no concerns about its work, or expecting it to have had short-term effects on GNP, would be holding it to an unrealistic standard.

One more note - I think the criticism leveled by the article you linked to is overblown (see our 2007 post on ‘responsible investing’).

I had planned to give to them a year ago, using the same reasoning as Warren Buffet (that the foundation can find a better use for it than I can). But, besides the fact that they have stated that they don’t want more money, there had been some bad press (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/07/nation/na-gatesx07) and lots of the standard criticisms (diverting skilled workers from hospitals to Gates AIDS clinics because they were paying workers too much, etc.)

Economist William Easterly also argued at the World Economic Forum in 2007 that the Gates Foundation hadn’t had an impact since its efforts hadn’t had an effect on GNP. Gates disagreed. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3635653767205809762#

Somehow, the idea of giving money to an organization that could be having no impact (or even causing harm depending on who you ask) didn’t sit well with me. This led me to discover GiveWell…

I find Carl’s explanation to be most likely.

It’s the difference between Warren Buffett investing $160 billion versus Warren Buffett investing $160 thousand. When you’re a smaller investor (or a smaller donor), it opens up opportunities to pursue options that are too small to warrant attention from a large donor. Again returning to the financial element, TSTC is up 428% in the last year, but their market cap is so small that no institutional investor (including Mr. Buffett) would ever have been able to buy a year ago.

Cheers,

–Ian

Full Disclosure: I own shares of TSTC and Berkshire Hathaway.

Sean, I’ve edited the post to incorporate your note.

Ian and Jonathan: the Gates Foundation may be struggling to give away the money well, but it still would seem to me that they’re better equipped to do so than donors who are explicitly looking to outsource the decision to them. (These donors apparently don’t perceive themselves to have any more capacity to find worthy recipients than Gates does.) It’s particularly strange that the Foundation encourages individual donors to contribute to its grantees’ “stable capital,” when the Foundation could presumably do the same.

Carl, it’s true that being perceived as soliciting funds would come with additional reporting/filing requirements. Your explanation seems likely to me.

This seems like sound reasoning to me.

I would love to see more publications with well-supported recommendations for international giving. It would be great to see this from the Gates Foundation or anyone else!

The second implication of these facts is that giving money to the Gates Foundation indirectly dilutes the quality of their grants; if in a given year the Foundation only sees $100m of quality grant opportunities but is required by law to grant $150m, the extra $50m will not be spent as efficiently.

That said, I didn’t know it was possible at all to give to the Foundation. I’ll give that a second look.

I think the real reason for the ludicrous cited language may be that there are legal issues and obligations associated with a private foundation actively soliciting donations, and officially discouraging donations provides a shield against trouble. A threat to the tax-exempt status of the Foundation would be a disaster.