Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
You can view previous open threads here.
Comments
After being scammed yourselves in April, and suffering the shame that SBF’s story has brought on EA in November, you are still accepting cryptocurrency donations. In my view you are doing PR for criminals through this.
I am contributing to this myself by donating to GiveWell and hate that. I would much prefer to donate to a charity not affiliated with cryptocurrencies.
Hi, Daniel,
Thank you for your continuing support of GiveWell. We appreciate your sharing these thoughts with us.
We understand that the collapse of FTX has caused some concern about cryptocurrency donations. Specifically, it has underscored the volatility of cryptocurrency markets, which is why we have a policy of always liquidating crypto donations into dollars as soon as possible after receiving them. This means that our funding is minimally exposed to market fluctuations, and these donations can be put to work quickly to support impactful programs.
We know that this may not mitigate all your concerns about our practice of accepting crypto. Please feel free to email us if you’d like to discuss further.
Best,
Miranda
Are you in a position to state whether GiveWell received any monies from FTX, Alameda, or any organizations/persons known to be affiliated with them? And if so, (1) how much; (2) whether it was unrestricted or designated for grantmaking and (3) what GiveWell’s plans are with respect to that money?
I’m sure no one at GiveWell knew, but the US Attorney has made it pretty clear that at least the bulk of FTX-aligned charitable contributions derived from stolen customer funds. And the FTX Foundation website still has a quote from GiveWell’s director of development expressing how GiveWell was “delighted to work with such an aligned partner.”
Hi, Jason,
The FTX Foundation granted $1.5 million to GiveWell to be distributed to cost-effective global health charities in February 2022. All of that funding was regranted to our recommended charities in May 2022—none was used for GiveWell operations (which are supported out of a different fund).
Given that the funds were regranted, we are not able to get that money back. However, if an appropriate avenue for returning the money to FTX customers is made available, we plan to restore the equivalent amount to those creditors out of our own operating funds. We’re standing by for further guidance on this.
Best,
Miranda
We can’t make transaction. Tell me how long we wait.
Dr.Rafiq
Hi, Dr. Rafiq,
If you need help completing a donation, please contact donations@givewell.org. Thank you, and sorry for the trouble!
Best,
Miranda
Would love to see some info on the crisis in Somalia. All I could find was info from a situation about 11 years ago (https://blog.givewell.org/2011/07/25/somalia-east-africa-famine-relief-donations/). I hope that the previous crisis helped build more confidence in making some recommendations the next time, but I’m still waiting for an update.
Thanks for your service.
Hi, Thomas,
Thank you for following our work! We sympathize with the desire to help those at risk of famine conditions. Unfortunately, we don’t have any up-to-date recommendations for donors who want to contribute to relief from famine, wars, or other disasters.
Our impression is that the biggest bottleneck to helping with disasters isn’t lack of funding—both because high international attention to these events leads to an influx of donations, and because there are often logistical challenges in getting aid to the people who need it. We believe there’s greater potential for donors to help people in combating the everyday diseases that claim many lives each year, like malaria. We would guess that in general, our top charities represent more cost-effective giving opportunities than options for alleviating suffering from acute crises.
Disaster relief efforts also require a very fast response, and our intensive approach to investigations, which can sometimes require hundreds or thousands of hours of research to complete, isn’t well suited to coming up with recommendations very quickly.
We’ve followed up on this topic a few times since that 2011 blog post was published—see here and here—but these posts are also quite old. We also wrote a post (originally from 2013, reposted in 2017) with tips on giving more effectively to disaster relief if you do decide to pursue it.
I hope that’s helpful!
Best,
Miranda
Is there any planned, current or in-progress research by you all on evaluating antivenom focused groups? I am asking specifically since the article below seemed to make a good case for its potential cost-effectiveness. https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/advancing-antivenom/
Hi, Malte,
Thanks for your question! We haven’t looked at antivenom recently, but in 2017 we did some limited research into interventions to address snakebite, due to its high burden of deaths worldwide. Our initial assessment, which was rough and hasn’t been published, suggested that buying antivenom to supply to clinics would be below our cost-effectiveness bar for funding.
As a result, we haven’t prioritized further investigation of antivenom interventions.
I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful!
Best,
Miranda
Are you still only hiring white researchers and/or program officers? I want to know if I should bother applying at all since the lack of diversity in your staff is astounding.
Hi, Bakte,
We very much value diversity on our staff, and we encourage you and others to apply. You can find all open research positions on our jobs page. If you’d like to speak to someone on our research team about working at GiveWell, please email info@givewell.org.
Best,
Miranda
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