David Leonhardt’s excellent piece on health care reminded me of the debates within philanthropy. For most of human history … [doctors’] treatments consisted of inducing vomiting or diarrhea and, most common of all, bleeding their patients … Yet patients continued to go to doctors, and many continued to put great in faith in medicine ……
The GiveWell Blog
Year: 2009
Evaluating microsavings
We’re excited about the idea of microsavings as opposed to microlending. But it isn’t enough to see that an organization offers microsavings. We need to know: Are savings services being provided relatively efficiently? How many clients are served per dollar of operating expenses? Are clients able to access their funds when they need them? We…
If microsavings is more needed, why does microcredit get more attention?
Portfolios of the Poor tells a story you won’t hear from a typical microfinance charity: Sankar was a landless, illiterate rickshaw driver, whose wife had Grameen membership. They had borrowed from Grameen Bank a few times – in fact one loan had helped him buy his rickshaw. Suddenly his wife told him they would have…
Too much attention on the giver’s experience; not enough on the recipient’s
From the recent discussion on Tactical Philanthropy: As philanthropists/donors/funders, we spend so much time thinking about how to maximize social benefit through our activities, that often we lose sight of the personal benefits that we experience from these endeavors. We disagree. Consider the current state of the nonprofit sector. We have practically no information about…
Our process: Narrowing the field
One of the aspects of our research process that has generated some objections is our use of “heuristics,” i.e., shortcuts to winnow the field of recommended charities from 300+ to a manageable number for closer investigation. The heuristics we use are described here. A good statement of the objections comes this comment at Hatrack forums:…
Donor illusions
There’s an persistent conflict in international charity: It feels great to be able to say, “My donation helped THIS person.” But it’s rarely – if ever – practical for that sort of connection to be real. As a result, international charities tend to create “donor illusions” by implying that donations can be attributed more tangibly,…