Lately we have seen a surge in thoughtful and interesting comments on this blog. To those participating in the discussions, thank you and please keep them coming. We try to respond to any comment that is substantive and critical, though when there are as many as there have been lately, we may go a few…
The GiveWell Blog
Year: 2009
A conflict of Bayesian priors?
This question might be at the core of our disagreements with many: When you have no information one way or the other about a charity’s effectiveness, what should you assume by default? Our default assumption, or prior, is that a charity – at least in one of the areas we’ve studied most, U.S. equality of…
When is a charity’s logo a donor illusion?
When the charity is Nothing But Nets. Peter Singer has explained the problem with the “net = life” equation, and any other serious analysis we’ve seen of insecticide-treated nets agrees. Why does this matter? Because Nothing But Nets also prominently states that the total cost of each net is $10. For donors looking to maximize…
By default, assume aid projects aren’t reaching the poorest
If you don’t have evidence one way or the other, should you assume an aid’s projects benefits are reaching the poorest? We think it’s fair to assume the people with the most need are the people with the least power. We’d also guess that, in general, the people with the most power are best positioned…
Why are we always criticizing charities?
Recently, we’ve criticized (in one way or another) many well-known, presumably well-intentioned charities (Smile Train, Acumen Fund, UNICEF, Kiva), which might lead some to ask: should GiveWell focus on the bad (which may discourage donors from giving) as opposed to the good (which would encourage them to give more)? Why so much negativity and not…
Smile Train removes charts from website; still claims $250 per surgery
Two days ago, I critiqued the message sent by charts on Smile Train’s “Financial Information” page, particularly the idea that a surgery was being provided for every $250 in donations. My recollection is that the page had been up in this form since at least the summer of 2006 (when I first started investigating surgery…