The GiveWell Blog

LAPO: Case study on due diligence by microfinance funders

Updated 10/19/10 to reflect new information, submitted by a Grameen Foundation representative, regarding encouraging developments on LAPO since mid-year. To be clear, we stand by the main message of this post, which is not about LAPO’s current situation but about its funders’ and partners’ behavior over the last several years, prior to the public controversy…

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More on charity ratings and GiveWell’s mission

Last week we wrote that we are likely going to stop giving zero-to-three-star ratings to charities. Some praised the decision, while others offered suggestions for how to resolve the problems we listed with ratings (we responded to the suggestions in the thread). While we went into a lot of detail on the problems with ratings,…

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Why charity ratings don’t work (as of now)

For a little over a year, GiveWell has assigned zero- to three-star ratings to all charities we’ve examined. We’ve done so in response to constant requests from our fans and followers. We’ve been told that people want easily digested, unambiguous “bottom line” information that can help them make a decision in a hurry and with…

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Thoughts from Dharavi tour

Last week the staff of GiveWell went on a tour of the Dharavi slum, organized by Reality Tours. Consistent with the tour’s policy, we took no pictures, but here are some thoughts: In some ways (and consistent with our understanding of relevant data), the standard of living seems below anything I’ve seen in the U.S.,…

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Nurse-Family Partnership and room for more funding

We are currently updating our review of Nurse-Family Partnership National Service Office (NFP NSO) (one of our top-rated charities). We did our main review of NFP NSO in 2008 and since then we have continued to develop our research process, and in particular our approach to assessing room for more funding, i.e., how much more…

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Should I give out cash in Mumbai?

We mentioned before that we were planning a trip to Mumbai (also known as Bombay, in India). At this we have been here for a few weeks. We will be coming back to the U.S. between mid-November and mid-December. From a GiveWell perspective, one of the things that is very different about being here vs….

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