We’ve been working on an update of our disaster relief report, and came across an American Red Cross evaluation from December 2010 stating: If you would like to access this report, please get in contact with the ALNAP secretariat. We emailed the ALNAP secretariat, saying: I am writing from GiveWell, an independent, non-profit charity evaluator…
The GiveWell Blog
All posts by Holden
Trading off upside vs. track record
[Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] We previously listed our five chief criteria for GiveWell Labs (a new arm of our research process that will be open to any giving opportunity, no matter what form and what sector). This post further discusses the first two of these…
How tax deductions and processing fees make it harder to give well
We spent a lot of time last month dealing with headaches around tax deductions and processing fees. We thought we’d share our experiences with these headaches, and how they get in the way of donors’ abilities to give as effectively as possible. We’re thinking about how to better deal with these issues in 2012.
Last-minute donations
Of the money moved to our top charities through our website in 2010, 25% was on December 31st alone. We know that lots of people will be looking to make last-minute donations. If you only have five minutes but you want to take advantage of the thousands of hours of work we put into finding…
Mega-charities
We haven’t written much about mega-charities: extremely large international charities (budgets of $250+ million per year) carrying out a very wide range of activities, and commonly recognized as household names. We’re thinking of groups like UNICEF, Oxfam, Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children, World Vision, and CARE. The main reason we haven’t written…
The risks of giving
Elie recently highlighted his doubts about our top charities, and a commenter responded: Of course one ultimately never knows how much good a charity or any given donation will do. Bednets might end up saving the life of child who grows up to be the next Nelson Mandela – or the next Saddam Hussein. Everything…