The GiveWell Blog

Front-loading my personal giving this year

I’ve decided to give a little more than double what I normally give to charity this year, and skip giving next year. I see many reasons to give a larger-than-normal gift this year, and no countervailing reasons. If it weren’t for some idiosyncratic factors in my situation, I would roll my next three years of…

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New posts on the Open Philanthropy Blog: Our early farm animal welfare grants, philosophy of hits-based giving

We are now posting content relevant to the Open Philanthropy Project to the Open Philanthropy Blog, rather than the GiveWell Blog. For a period of time, we will be posting notices here when new content appears, in order to ease the transition. We encourage those interested in the Open Philanthropy Project to follow it via…

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New post on the Open Philanthropy Blog: David Roodman on whether there’s been a notable recent crime wave

We are now posting content relevant to the Open Philanthropy Project to the Open Philanthropy Blog, rather than the GiveWell Blog. For a period of time, we will be posting notices here when new content appears, in order to ease the transition. We encourage those interested in the Open Philanthropy Project to follow it via…

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The importance of “gold standard” studies for consumers of research

There’s been some interesting discussion on how the world of social science experiments is evolving. Chris Blattman worries that there is too much of a tendency toward large, expensive, perfectionist studies, writing: each study is like a lamp post. We might want to have a few smaller lamp posts illuminating our path, rather than the…

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Suggestions for individual donors from Open Philanthropy Project staff

The Open Philanthropy Project looks for outstanding giving opportunities, but its target audience is large institutional donors – unlike GiveWell’s top charities work, which targets individual donors. Some individuals have expressed interest in hearing whether there are any organizations we’ve come across, in our work on the Open Philanthropy Project, that they might consider donating…

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Good Ventures and giving now vs. later

GiveWell and Good Ventures no longer follow the approach outlined below in 2015 to direct Good Ventures’ funding to GiveWell’s top charities. The approach changed in 2016; Good Ventures now gives to GiveWell top charities according to a budget it sets with the Open Philanthropy Project that takes into account its total giving and priorities,…

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