The GiveWell Blog

Hello, world

Other charity bloggers have been noticing us, and there have been some good discussions going on about GiveWell in other places. There really should be a better system for blog-to-blog communication, such that you can see all the conversations relevant to your blog of choice just by reading that blog’s feed … this is what the trackback system is supposed to do, I think, but it doesn’t work. Internet entrepreneurs, you’re welcome for the business idea. In its absence, here’s a quick roundup.

First off, the discussion over Network for Good’s processing fees caused a mini-stir. Some found our approach obnoxious and “suck[y].” Others defended us. Katya, of Network for Good, wraps up with her thoughts on dealing with customer complaints, which demonstrate an attitude we wish we saw more of.

Then there are those who looked beyond the dispute to check out our actual project. Other bloggers are confirming what we suspected: that no one else seems to be doing what we’re doing. We had some discussion about why that is on the Tactical Philanthropy blog. Of course, we hope others will feel the same needs we do, and enter the ring to address them – though now that we’re rolling, I hope that anyone who wants to put their time into a project like this will find out about us and end up shooting me an email to make sure there’s no time wasted on outright duplication. Meanwhile, Lucy Bernholz, who seems to generate catchy phrases in her sleep, calls us “community-driven, transparent analysis for donors by donors.” I really hope she didn’t pull a Pat Riley and trademark that phrase – we may have to steal it.

Comments

  • not related to the content of your work, but in terms of finding out what others are saying about you, a quick way to do it is via a smart blogsearch. if you need something more complicated, you might want to check out yahoo pipes.

  • oh man i give up. i’m somewhat tech savvy and i can’t figure out how to leave a linked comment! delete em all! 🙂

  • Sorry, we’re Wiki addicts so we’re using the Wiki plugin for WordPress, and for some reason it’s been breaking traditional links (you have to use Wiki syntax, like this: [URL text]). I fixed your pipes link and approved your comment, but your blogsearch link still didn’t work for me – can you just email it to me and/or paste it here as is (no in an href or anything)?

  • Lucy Bernholz on February 28, 2007 at 9:32 am said:

    I’m awake now. You’re welcome to the phrase.
    Lucy

  • The GiveWell Blog - Exploring how to get real change for your dollar. » BRB on May 18, 2007 at 1:51 pm said:

    […] We launched this blog, started getting attention (after making a stink about credit card processing costs), announced the Clear Fund (our large-scale project to accomplish our goal of promoting transparency and good information for donors), gave a valiant though futile try at making the NetSquared conference (maybe the problem is that we aren’t actually a “Web 2.0″ project), and recently revealed our identities. […]

  • Anonymous on March 7, 2008 at 8:18 pm said:

    free car quote…

    Excellent post. Keep it up!…

Comments are closed.