The GiveWell Blog

Why charity ratings don’t work (as of now)

For a little over a year, GiveWell has assigned zero- to three-star ratings to all charities we’ve examined. We’ve done so in response to constant requests from our fans and followers. We’ve been told that people want easily digested, unambiguous “bottom line” information that can help them make a decision in a hurry and with…

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Thoughts from Dharavi tour

Last week the staff of GiveWell went on a tour of the Dharavi slum, organized by Reality Tours. Consistent with the tour’s policy, we took no pictures, but here are some thoughts: In some ways (and consistent with our understanding of relevant data), the standard of living seems below anything I’ve seen in the U.S.,…

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Nurse-Family Partnership and room for more funding

We are currently updating our review of Nurse-Family Partnership National Service Office (NFP NSO) (one of our top-rated charities). We did our main review of NFP NSO in 2008 and since then we have continued to develop our research process, and in particular our approach to assessing room for more funding, i.e., how much more…

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Should I give out cash in Mumbai?

We mentioned before that we were planning a trip to Mumbai (also known as Bombay, in India). At this we have been here for a few weeks. We will be coming back to the U.S. between mid-November and mid-December. From a GiveWell perspective, one of the things that is very different about being here vs….

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New research and recommendations for microfinance

Over the past few months, we’ve been continuing our search for outstanding microfinance organizations (in addition to the one we’ve already identified). Below are the results. Overview of our process and key questions In brief, our take on microfinance is that offering credit and other financial services is likely an effective way to improve people’s…

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