The GiveWell Blog

Update on GiveWell’s web traffic / money moved: Q1 2015

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 tables and chart below present basic information about our growth in money moved…

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GiveWell summer fellowship

We’re planning to host a one week fellowship this summer at our office in San Francisco for students more than a year away from graduation (e.g., first years or sophomores in college), who would be ineligible for our Summer Research Analyst position. We expect to have 4-8 fellows, who will spend a week doing standard…

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History of philanthropy case study: Pew and drug safety legislation

Tamara Mann Tweel, who has been working for us on our history of philanthropy project, has completed a case study of a Pew Charitable Trusts (“Pew”) program focused on drug supply chain safety legislation in 2012. The report concludes: Pew put drug supply chain safety concerns on the legislative agenda in 2011 and actively built…

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Funder-initiated startups

We’ve come across many cases where a funder took a leading role in creating a now-major nonprofit. This has been surprising to us: it intuitively seems that the people best suited to initiate new organizations are the people who can work full-time on conceiving an organization, fundraising for it, and doing the legwork to create…

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Our updated agenda for science philanthropy

We’re hoping to set the Open Philanthropy Project’s initial priorities within scientific research this year. That means being in a place roughly comparable to where we currently are on U.S. policy and global catastrophic risks: having a ranked list of focus areas and goals for hiring and grantmaking. The process is going to have to…

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