The GiveWell Blog

Open Philanthropy Project update: U.S. policy

Last year, we set a “stretch goal” for the Open Philanthropy Project: There are two types of causes – global catastrophic risks and US policy issues – that we now feel generally familiar with (particularly with the methods of investigation). We also believe it is important for us to pick some causes for serious commitments…

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Notes from November convening on our policy priorities

Last November, we held a day-long convening in Washington, D.C. to discuss possible priorities for Open Philanthropy Project work on U.S. policy. Our main goal was to present our picture of several policy issues, as well as to receive input to inform upcoming decisions about which issue(s) we should focus on. For each issue, we…

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Partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts

Throughout the post, “we” refers to GiveWell and Good Ventures, who work as partners on GiveWell Labs. [Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] We have agreed to a major partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts as part of our work on criminal justice reform. Good Ventures will…

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Potential U.S. policy focus areas

Throughout the post, “we” refers to GiveWell and Good Ventures, who work as partners on GiveWell Labs. [Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] Previously, we laid out our basic framework and reasoning for selecting U.S. policy causes to focus on for GiveWell Labs. This post goes through…

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Narrowing down U.S. policy areas

Throughout the post, “we” refers to GiveWell and Good Ventures, who work as partners on GiveWell Labs. [Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] As part of our work on GiveWell Labs, we’ve been exploring the possibility of getting involved in policy-oriented philanthropy (see our previous posts on…

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The importance of committing to causes

Updated Sept. 12, 2014 to change “GiveWell Labs” to “Open Philanthropy Project,” in line with our August 2014 announcement.Throughout the post, “we” refers to GiveWell and Good Ventures, who work as partners on the Open Philanthropy Project. In our work on the Open Philanthropy Project, we’ve consistently found that the level of interest we show in a…

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