We recently discussed how you can give to reduce the administrative burden on charities when giving. This post will focus on how you can save money on fees and give tax-efficiently so that more of your charitable budget can go directly to the organizations you want to support. This is an updated version of a post we originally ran in 2012; some content is the same, other content has been added or updated.
The GiveWell Blog
All posts by Catherine Hollander
December 2017 open thread
Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
Give efficiently and reduce the work for charities
GiveWell’s research aims to help donors by recommending charities we believe can put donations to use efficiently to save or improve lives. Our research focuses on maximizing the good donors can accomplish with their gifts by identifying where to donate effectively.
This is the first of two posts discussing another important aspect of giving effectively: how you donate. The second post will discuss how to maximize your gift (via tax deductions, employer matches, and other strategies) and to ensure the greatest percentage of your donation reaches the charity, rather than being taken up by fees. This post will discuss how to reduce the administrative burdens on charities by choosing your donation method wisely.
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September 2017 open thread
Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d…
Why we’re allocating discretionary funds to the Deworm the World Initiative
Many donors who give through GiveWell’s website choose to donate to support “Grants to recommended charities at GiveWell’s discretion,” rather than selecting a specific recommended charity or charities as the target of their gift.
We periodically grant these “discretionary funds” to what we see as the highest-value funding opportunities among our top charities. We last granted discretionary funds in April; then, we granted $4.4 million to the Against Malaria Foundation and $0.5 million to the Deworm the World Initiative.
Since we last allocated funds, we received an additional $1.25 million in discretionary funds that we recently granted out. We also hold roughly $1 million in discretionary funds that we plan to grant out in the next month or two. We plan to grant all of this funding to the Deworm the World Initiative.
Recommendation for donors
We continue to recommend that donors give 100% of their donation to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF). In other words, although we’re choosing to grant discretionary funds to Deworm the World, we don’t believe that donors who rely on our recommendations should adjust their giving at this time. We explain the rationale for this below.