The GiveWell Blog

December 2014 update on GiveWell’s funding needs

This post provides an update on GiveWell’s operating budget and funding needs. It is aimed at close followers of GiveWell, particularly those who have a high degree of trust in and alignment with us and are primarily seeking to make the highest-impact gift according to our (admittedly biased) opinion. Our opinion is that for such…

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Request for input

We’re planning to redesign our website in early 2015. We last worked on our website in 2009, and it’s time to refresh it. Please let us know if you have any suggestions you’d like us to consider. In particular: Is there functionality you wish our website had? Is there information you wish were easier to…

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Update on the Ebola outbreak

Over the past couple of months, we’ve put some time into trying to understand the Ebola containment effort and whether it represents a strong giving opportunity. Our process has included conversations and correspondence with about 15 people including major private donors to the containment effort and representatives of the UN, CDC, WHO, and Doctors without…

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Should we expect an ongoing study to meet its “goal?”

One of our newly “standout” charities, Development Media International (DMI), is in the midst of a randomized controlled trial. So far, all we have from the trial is information about self-reported behavior change, and we’ve tried to use that information to estimate how many lives the program will likely save (for purposes of our cost-effectiveness…

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We’re happy to talk to you!

If you’re currently trying to figure out where you’ll give this year, and you think it might be helpful to talk to us about your decision, feel free to contact us at info@givewell.org. We work hard to put all the relevant information about our recommendations on our website, but we know it can sometimes be…

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Donor coordination and the “giver’s dilemma” – part II

We recently wrote about three questions we faced that relate to donor coordination. This post is a continuation of that topic and may only appeal to donors who are particularly interested in this issue. Over the past two weeks, we’ve been discussing the question: how should we allocate funds that donors give us for regranting…

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