Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!

If you’d like to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.

We’re always excited when we can use the media to tell people about GiveWell’s work—we encourage you to check out our recent feature on the EconTalk podcast! In this episode, GiveWell’s CEO Elie Hassenfeld spoke with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts to discuss GiveWell’s history and how we strive to find the most charitable “bang for your buck.” The conversation covered how and why GiveWell was founded, our methods for determining top charities and other high-impact grant opportunities, and the dangers of relying too heavily on data.

Research updates

We’ve recently published a number of new research pages—below are a few highlights. If you’d like to sign up for email updates whenever we publish new research materials, you can do so here.

• Perennial malaria chemoprevention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • In November 2022, GiveWell made a $6.2 million grant to PATH to conduct a two-year implementation pilot of perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC)¹Note: Intermittent preventive treatment in infants is now called perennial malaria chemoprevention. in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where malaria is a leading cause of death among young children. PMC is the provision of preventive antimalarial medicine to children under the age of two at routine vaccination visits. We believe this grant to be highly cost-effective and expect PATH will reach over 180,000 infants during the pilot. We believe that this pilot, by demonstrating the possibility for successful implementation in DRC, has the potential to accelerate PMC support from other donors, which could lead to roughly 900,000 infants receiving PMC over the next decade.
• Deworming programs in Burundi and Mauritania
  • In June 2023, GiveWell made a $1.5 million exit grant to Unlimit Health, formerly the SCI Foundation, for its deworming programs in Burundi and Mauritania. This grant extended funding for these programs for two years (through March 2026) in hopes of supporting a smooth transition away from GiveWell funding. GiveWell often chooses to provide exit funding when we decide not to renew our support of programs we’ve funded. We believe it is good practice to support core operations and staff while they wind down the program or seek other sources of funding, minimizing potential harm from a program ending abruptly.
• Clubfoot treatment in the Philippines, Chad, and Côte d’Ivoire
  • In July’s newsletter, we shared a blog post about why we’re funding MiracleFeet, which provides treatment for clubfoot, a funding area that is new to us. We recently published a grant page discussing why we made this grant and providing our full cost-effectiveness analysis.
• In-line chlorination in Rwanda
  • In October 2022, GiveWell made a one-year, $451,212 grant to One Acre Fund to scope potential in-line chlorination opportunities in Rwanda. In-line chlorination is a technology for automatically disinfecting water by adding chlorine as it flows through a pipe. It can be a cheap and effective way to prevent deaths associated with diarrhea and other infectious diseases. The goal of this grant is to explore whether in-line chlorination in Rwanda could be cost-effective at scale.
• Intervention report on oral rehydration solution and zinc
  • Our research team recently wrote an intervention report on oral rehydration solution (ORS) and zinc. ORS is a fluid replacement, often administered alongside short-term zinc supplementation, to treat dehydration due to diarrhea. We believe this type of intervention is highly cost-effective, but we are uncertain about the costs of the program and how best to increase usage of ORS. We’re interested in investing in ORS distribution programs and hope to learn more about this area.

Update on Open Philanthropy’s giving

This year, Open Philanthropy plans to give $300 million total for GiveWell to spend over the next three years. Annualized, this is similar to what Open Philanthropy gave in 2020 and roughly in line with what we projected earlier this year. It’s less than Open Philanthropy gave in 2021 and 2022, and we’ll need strong growth in donations in order to make up the difference. Read more in our full blog post here.

We’re grateful for Open Philanthropy’s support, which has funded opportunities that we think are outstanding. At the same time, as we discussed in last month’s newsletter, we are funding-constrained and expect to identify more high-impact giving opportunities than we can fully fund. Your support can fill those cost-effective gaps, helping to save and improve people’s lives.

Your questions, answered

The mailbag spotlights common questions we get from donors and followers about GiveWell’s work. Got a question of your own? Email us at info@givewell.org, or post a comment to our most recent open thread.

Q: Are there ways to support GiveWell other than donating money?

A: Yes! Although we talk a lot about the impact of monetary donations, support for GiveWell can come in many forms. Here are some suggestions (handily summarized here if you want to share):

• Invite GiveWell to speak at your workplace. Do you want to introduce your colleagues to the concept of effective giving and inspire them to contribute to a meaningful cause? You can host a workplace talk and invite one of our GiveWell staff members, either in person or virtually. This can help cultivate a culture of giving and can inspire a sense of purpose among your colleagues. If you think your coworkers would like to learn more about our work, request a talk here!
• Share our posts on social media. We post job openings, research updates, event information, and other content on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Sharing these posts allows us to reach a broader audience of donors and job candidates.
• Share information about effective giving. We’ve published a list of books, articles, podcasts, and videos that can serve as a useful introduction to effective giving for your friends, family, or coworkers.
• Fundraise for GiveWell. Consider setting up a fundraiser on Every.org to raise money for GiveWell. This is a great way to support us through a personal celebration like a wedding registry or birthday fundraiser, or through a sponsored event. You can share your passion for the work that GiveWell does with friends and family while making an impact!