An anonymous donor got some buzz a few weeks ago with its call on Innocentive for “extraordinary and unorthodox” philanthropic opportunities. It seeks a project that “holds the potential for a transformational impact,” “is unlikely to attract funding elsewhere due to its risky, unorthodox, and/or neglected profile,” and will be able to “attract additional capital…
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Health system strengthening + sustainability + accountability
We’ve written a lot about our top-rated charity, VillageReach (in particular, see our official review and our 2009 blog post). Consistent with our focus on individual/casual donors, we generally emphasize effectiveness over ambition, and so we have mostly focused on VillageReach’s fit with our criteria: its strong case for effectveness, cost-effectiveness, and room for more…
Microfinance: The multi-billion-dollar aid sector that we’re just starting to learn about
GiveWell attended the Microfinance Innovation & Impact Conference via Board member Tim Ogden and part-time employee Stephanie Wykstra. (Our full-time staff could not attend as we are all in India). Our main takeaways: The people involved with this conference, and the nonprofits working with them, are producing a lot of promising, interesting, rigorous and informative…
Engineers Without Borders earns “Notable” distinction
Engineers Without Borders is a group we’ve never encountered before, focused on “enabling rural Africans the opportunity to access clean water, generate an income from humble farms, and access critical infrastructure and services.” (Here’s a list of its projects in Africa.) This group deserves recognition for doing the simplest thing guaranteed to improve GiveWell’s view…
LAPO: Case study on due diligence by microfinance funders
Updated 10/19/10 to reflect new information, submitted by a Grameen Foundation representative, regarding encouraging developments on LAPO since mid-year. To be clear, we stand by the main message of this post, which is not about LAPO’s current situation but about its funders’ and partners’ behavior over the last several years, prior to the public controversy…
More on charity ratings and GiveWell’s mission
Last week we wrote that we are likely going to stop giving zero-to-three-star ratings to charities. Some praised the decision, while others offered suggestions for how to resolve the problems we listed with ratings (we responded to the suggestions in the thread). While we went into a lot of detail on the problems with ratings,…