For our first round of grantmaking, we chose to investigate five broad causes, two in the developing world (saving lives and fighting poverty) and three in the developed world (early childhood care; K-12 education; employment assistance). This decision – doing five causes, instead of narrowing our scope from the outset – had serious costs. Even…
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Rigorous research on aid
Measuring the effect of aid on people’s lives can be difficult, and may never be perfect – but we believe that it can be done, and has been done, both rigorously and practically. Examples can be found on three sites devoted to conducting and/or promoting rigorous evaluation of social programs: Poverty Action Lab, Innovators for…
I had a lapse in judgment, did a horrible thing, and I apologize
I did what is apparently known as “astroturfing,” using a fake ID to try to get attention for GiveWell. Why did I do this? 1. I had a horrible lapse in judgment. 2. I have been low on sleep, and running around like a madman. I’d like to think that had something to do with…
Transparency, measurement, humility
Transparency is the one thing about GiveWell that everyone seems to like. Our focus on measurement is much more contested. I believe that the connection is tight, though, because both are necessary consequences of humility, which is probably the last word you ever thought I’d ask to be associated with. Transparency is a really big…
Tough calls
Audio for last Monday’s board meeting is on the way; in the meantime, here’s a summary. The meeting ran about five hours and had heated arguments, tension, drama, a couple car chases, and down-to-the-wire votes. The highlight was the Elie and I ended up reversing our position on 2 of the 3 causes we voted…
Bear with us
We got more attention today than we can handle. We have a tremendous volume of questions, comments, concerns, and requests and it’s going to take us a while to dig through them. We have no customer service dept – it’s just me, Elie, and Teel – but we will get it done. So if you…