The GiveWell Blog

New content: New research report, new ratings system, DIY Guide, and self-evaluation

We’ve been working on a lot of changes and additions to the main GiveWell website and at this point have gone live with all of the following: New research and recommendations on U.S. education and early childhood care. We did some work on these causes in our first year, but we’ve now gone back with…

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After “extraordinary and unorthodox” comes the valley of death

An anonymous donor got some buzz a few weeks ago with its call on Innocentive for “extraordinary and unorthodox” philanthropic opportunities. It seeks a project that “holds the potential for a transformational impact,” “is unlikely to attract funding elsewhere due to its risky, unorthodox, and/or neglected profile,” and will be able to “attract additional capital…

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Health system strengthening + sustainability + accountability

We’ve written a lot about our top-rated charity, VillageReach (in particular, see our official review and our 2009 blog post). Consistent with our focus on individual/casual donors, we generally emphasize effectiveness over ambition, and so we have mostly focused on VillageReach’s fit with our criteria: its strong case for effectveness, cost-effectiveness, and room for more…

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Microfinance: The multi-billion-dollar aid sector that we’re just starting to learn about

GiveWell attended the Microfinance Innovation & Impact Conference via Board member Tim Ogden and part-time employee Stephanie Wykstra. (Our full-time staff could not attend as we are all in India). Our main takeaways: The people involved with this conference, and the nonprofits working with them, are producing a lot of promising, interesting, rigorous and informative…

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