Chris Blattman cites our advice on using academic research and asks for “Other suggestions for the profession.” We have several and this seemed like a good time to share them. Our suggestions should be taken in context, of course. On one hand, we do not have staff with backgrounds in academia; there’s a lot we…
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Microlending debate: An example of why academic research should be used with caution
We often use academic research to inform our work, but we try to do so with great caution, rather than simply taking reported results at face value. We believe that if you trust academic research just because it is peer-reviewed, published, and/or reputable, this is a mistake. A good example of why we’re concerned comes…
Evaluating local charities in India
A donor of ours earmarked $10,000 for regranting to a local charity in India, and in deciding how to give this away (and for general learning) we conducted 20+ site visits to small NGOs during our travels. In a sense, this was a chance for us to try out a more traditional method of giving:…
Holden’s general notes from living in India
Last year, the staff of GiveWell moved to Mumbai for several months. We did this largely for personal reasons (our staff is small enough that we were able to coordinate it, and we all thought it would be interesting) but also took advantage of our time there to visit 20 nonprofits (some of them more…
More Than Good Intentions by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel: Our review
A few disclosures regarding this book: Innovations for Poverty Action is a client of Sona Partners, and Tim Ogden of Sona Partners sits on our Board. We are currently considering Innovations for Poverty Action for a recommendation. We sent the authors of the book an early draft of this review and have made modifications after…
Three Cups of Tea scandal: Why we had the right bottom line on the Central Asia Institute
There has been a lot of coverage of the scandals around the Central Asia Institute. The founder has been accused of fabricating inspiring stories, as well as of spending less than half of the millions of dollars he’s raised on building schools. The Central Asia Institute receives four stars from Charity Navigator (archived) and had…