The GiveWell Blog

Why charity ratings don’t work (as of now)

For a little over a year, GiveWell has assigned zero- to three-star ratings to all charities we’ve examined. We’ve done so in response to constant requests from our fans and followers. We’ve been told that people want easily digested, unambiguous “bottom line” information that can help them make a decision in a hurry and with…

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Thoughts from Dharavi tour

Last week the staff of GiveWell went on a tour of the Dharavi slum, organized by Reality Tours. Consistent with the tour’s policy, we took no pictures, but here are some thoughts: In some ways (and consistent with our understanding of relevant data), the standard of living seems below anything I’ve seen in the U.S.,…

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Should I give out cash in Mumbai?

We mentioned before that we were planning a trip to Mumbai (also known as Bombay, in India). At this we have been here for a few weeks. We will be coming back to the U.S. between mid-November and mid-December. From a GiveWell perspective, one of the things that is very different about being here vs….

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Responses to blog comments

We’ve had lots of thoughtful comments on the blog lately, and we haven’t had a chance to respond because we’ve been in the process of moving to Mumbai. So I wanted to give a heads up that I’ve now had a chance to respond as appropriate to all comments; see “Recent comments” on the left…

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