The GiveWell Blog

Rethinking SCI’s evidence of impact

We’ve recently encountered some new (to us) information about studies we have relied on in our evaluation of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI), which is one of our top charities (and will remain one after our upcoming refresh). We won’t be able to fully investigate all the implications of this information by the end of giving…

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Change in Against Malaria Foundation recommendation status (room-for-more-funding-related)

Note: AMF has reviewed a draft of this post. We believe AMF’s willingness to let individual donors follow along with it – both the successes and the struggles – is highly unusual in the charity world, and an extremely important and positive quality. Since naming the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) as our #1 charity in…

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How to approach policy-oriented philanthropy

[Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] As noted previously, we’ve been working on improving our broad understanding of the role that philanthropy can play in influencing and informing policy. One of my goals has been to hear different perspectives on how one should (for maximum effectiveness) approach…

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6 tips on disaster relief giving

Our general advice on disaster relief giving: 1. Give cash, not clothes (or other goods). Giving away unwanted items makes donors feel good, and relief agencies can be under substantial pressure to accept their gifts-in-kind. But shipping and sorting these gifts can be a substantial expense and hassle, and such gifts can literally get in…

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The track record of policy-oriented philanthropy

[Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] As noted previously, I’ve been working on improving our broad understanding of the role that philanthropy can play in influencing and informing policy. One of the questions I’ve been focused on is “What is the track record of policy-oriented philanthropy?” Specifically:…

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Update on GiveWell’s web traffic / money moved: Q3 2013

In addition to evaluations of other charities, GiveWell publishes substantial evaluation of itself, from the quality of its research to its impact on donations. We publish quarterly updates regarding two key metrics: (a) donations to top charities and (b) web traffic. The table and chart below present basic information about our growth in money moved…

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