The GiveWell Blog

Geomagnetic storms: An introduction to the risk

This is the first post in a series about geomagnetic storms as a global catastrophic risk. A paper covering the material in this series was recently released. The Open Philanthropy Project has included geomagnetic storms in its list of global catastrophic risks of potential focus. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of them either. But…

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Key questions about philanthropy, part 1: What is the role of a funder?

This post was updated on July 6 with language edits but substantially unchanged content. As a new funder, we’ve found it surprisingly difficult to “learn the ropes” of philanthropy. We’ve found relatively little reading material – public or private – on some of the key questions we’re grappling with in starting a grantmaking organization, such…

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Incoming Program Officer for criminal justice reform: Chloe Cockburn

We’re excited to announce that Chloe Cockburn has accepted our offer to join the Open Philanthropy Project team as a Program Officer, leading our work on criminal justice reform. She expects to start in August and to work from New York, where she is currently based. She will lead our work on developing our grantmaking…

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Corrections in our review of Development Media International

Recently, we discovered a few errors in our cost-effectiveness analysis of Development Media International (DMI). After correcting these errors, our best guess of DMI’s cost per life saved has increased from $5,236 per life saved to $7,264 per life saved. Additionally, we discovered some errors in our analysis of DMI’s finances. The corrected cost-effectiveness analysis…

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