I want to take the time to explain a couple views I hold that offend some people. These views are: The label “philanthropy expert” means very little to me. I see no strong reason to believe that charitable foundations are generally capable, competent, or effective at anything at all. These aren’t insults aimed at particular…
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The 2007 Holden Award for Excellence in Imperfection
I am proud to announce the winner of the 2007 Holden Award for Excellence in Imperfection. This award has a rich history dating back to 3 minutes ago. The rules are as follows: The first charity to make a negative correction to its GiveWell review wins the award. Since we’ve published our review drafts, we’ve…
Getting the word out
It’s been about 5 days since we released our Africa report, and now we’re trying to get the word out. Some stuff: This week’s Chronicle of Philanthropy features us, and in a true act of sadism puts me on the cover. Smart Money mentions us in an article on intelligent giving. On the other hand,…
2 things WAY more exciting than a blog post
1. Our research on saving lives in Africa is now public. 2. Online chat this coming Tuesday, via the Chronicle of Philanthropy, with a special guest who looks absolutely too good to miss. Please participate – I type 120wpm, I am beyond pumped to have an online chat with the nonprofit sector, I want to…
What a “life saved” means
The goal of Cause 1 is to save lives in Africa, and we estimate that a good strategy can save a human life for somewhere in the ballpark of $1000. Sounds like an unbelievable deal, right?
Not to everyone. I was recently talking to a Board member and mentioned how much cheaper it seems to be to change/save lives in Africa vs. NYC. He responded, “Yeah, but what kind of life are you saving in Africa? Is that person just going to die of something else the next year?”
I think it’s interesting how (a) completely fair, relevant and important this question is for a donor; (b) how rarely we see questions like this (“Sure I helped someone, but what kind of life did I enable?”) brought up and analyzed. Here’s what we know right now:
Welcome to your virtual site visit
Monday I visited Year Up, our #1 ranked charity in the cause of employment assistance. Although they quite understandably declined my request to videotape the visit, I’m going to share as much of my impressions as I can here. Although I think informal/intuitive evidence is generally overrated (relative to facts about life outcomes), I do still think it’s valuable.