I previously expressed concerns about diversion of skilled labor: the possibility that nonprofits are outbidding the local private sector for top local talent. John de Wit of the Small Enterprise Foundation emailed us with a response: On the question of whether we divert skilled labour from other potentially productive pursuits let me try to comment…
The GiveWell Blog
Year: 2010
A proposal for donors interested in causes/charities we haven’t covered
I was talking with a friend of mine recently about how he decides which charities to support, and he said: I really like the GiveWell approach, but there are two reasons it’s not practical for me to base most of my charitable decisions on it. First, you just haven’t covered a lot of the areas…
Cost-effectiveness estimates: Inside the sausage factory
We’ve long had mixed feelings about cost-effectiveness estimates of charitable programs, i.e., attempts to figure out “how much good is accomplished per dollar donated.” The advantages of these estimates are obvious. If you can calculate that program A can help much more people – with the same funds, and in the same terms – than…
Thoughts from my visits to Small Enterprise Foundation (South Africa) and VillageReach (Mozambique), part III
Continued from Part I and Part II, these are my thoughts from my recent visit to two of our top charities in Africa. Some of what I saw and discussed prompted me to rethink our frameworks for evaluating certain kinds of programs: Vaccinations. We’ve taken the “vaccination coverage rate” as a reasonable proxy for lives…
Thoughts from my visits to Small Enterprise Foundation (South Africa) and VillageReach (Mozambique), part II
Continued from Part I, these are my thoughts from my recent visit to two of our top charities in Africa. Diverting skilled labor looks like a real concern. The COO of SEF stressed that one of SEF’s biggest challenges is human resources (i.e., continually finding good people to staff it). I can easily see how…
Thoughts from my visits to Small Enterprise Foundation (South Africa) and VillageReach (Mozambique), part I
I previously posted “raw data” (pictures, audio, notes) from my recent visit to two of our top charities in Africa. The next few posts will give my thoughts from the trip. First, a note on representativeness. I was only in Africa for two weeks; I was a complete outsider; I certainly don’t think that anything…