The GiveWell Blog

Month: August 2025

Podcast Episode 10: The Fragile Foundations of Global Health Data

(updated on: ) | by GiveWell Staff

GiveWell’s ability to find and fund highly cost-effective health programs relies on a foundation of credible data. A key source of that data, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), recently had its primary funding from USAID discontinued. This creates the potential of a significant challenge for GiveWell’s research—and for evidence-based grantmaking across the global health sector.

In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Researcher Adam Salisbury to explore the implications of this funding gap. They discuss how the DHS program works, why it’s essential for informed decision-making, and how GiveWell is responding to the growing limitations of public health data.

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GiveWell’s 2024 Metrics and Impact

(updated on: ) | by GiveWell Staff

Thanks to the generosity of more than 30,000 donors, GiveWell raised $415 million and directed $397 million to cost-effective programs in metrics year 2024 (February 2024 to January 2025). We approved 55 grants to 34 organizations working in 22 countries. We estimate that the programs supported by these grants will help around 34 million people who would not otherwise have been reached and will save an additional 74,000 lives.

We’re incredibly grateful to our donors for the trust they place in our research and for their partnership in trying to do the most good we can together. See this blog post and our full 2024 metrics report for more details behind the money we raised, the funds we directed, operational expenses, donor metrics, and the impact we had last year.

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Podcast Episode 9: Advancing GiveWell’s Work on Family Planning

(updated on: ) | by GiveWell Staff

As GiveWell’s research team grows, our goal is to compare as wide a range of programs as we can to find the most cost-effective opportunities to help people. Over the past year and a half, we’ve been investigating family planning services that help people decide whether and when to have children as a new area of research.

Family planning programs have particularly complex challenges around targeting, logistics, and ensuring informed and voluntary choice. However, GiveWell’s increasing research capacity positions us to now take on new and complex investigations like this. Over the past year, we’ve been  reviewing evidence, consulting with experts, modeling the benefits of contraception, and conducting initial grant investigations, focusing on programs that aim to increase access to and use of modern contraception. This work is especially timely as anticipated cuts to foreign assistance could reduce existing family planning support by around 50%, creating significant new funding gaps.

In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with researcher Dilhan Perera about the complexity of evaluating family planning programs. They explore the types of programs GiveWell is considering, the unique challenges this area presents, and key questions we’re working to answer.

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