We need your help. We’re about to contact all the charities we’ve identified as being potential Clear Fund grant recipients. We’ve mostly found these organizations through a systematic search through a gigantic stack of Form 990s (let me know if you want more details – they’re fantastically boring), and have found a few others in…
The GiveWell Blog
All posts by Holden
Nonprofits and for-profits: Similar or different? Part MCLXXVII
There has been a whole lot of discussion and confusion over whether nonprofits are like for-profits. To be honest, it seems pretty simple to me: How they’re similar: both are organizations trying to accomplish difficult things as well as they can. How they’re different: Nonprofits take donations; for-profits don’t. When people draw analogies that have…
An open letter to crybabies
I think that funders should be blunt, honest, and public in their feedback to nonprofits, including those who get rejected. The benefits in terms of allowing public dialogue and giving nonprofits the feedback they need to improve are obvious – yet every foundation I’ve called agrees that publicly criticizing rejectees is unacceptable. Why? The answer,…
What corporate social responsibility means to me
I find a huge disconnect between what others mean by “corporate social responsibility,” and how I think of it. Here are some of the things I don’t think are part of corporate social responsibility, pulled from a scan of dotherightthing.com (think CSR meets Digg): I don’t think it’s irresponsible for a corporation to charge as…
It’s for charity – but is it for a good cause?
People can get away with some incredible things as soon as they say that what they’re doing is “for charity.” First among these, of course, are the tax advantages that subsidize everything from helping the needy to fighting gun control, convincing people to eat beef, and stockpiling giant piles of cash for eternity. But it…
How personal should your giving be?
A commonplace among fundraisers is that “people take action and give for deeply personal reasons.” This can mean many different things, but one of the implications is that people give to extremely specific, personal causes: diseases that loved ones have suffered from, local charities in areas where they live or grew up, charities that serve…