I think most discussions of charity are way too fuzzy. Your standard fundraising proposal has several adorable pictures, a couple disturbing ones, and one or two numbers that seem to have been shouted in a moment of impassioned inspiration, with nary a source to be found. Then, though, there is the occasional economist/mathematician/cyborg who comes…
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Network for what now?
Note: As of 2017, this blog post no longer represents GiveWell’s views on Network for Good. Help me understand this. For those of you whose browsers don’t support hyperlinks: Charity Navigator processes direct donations to charities using Network for Good, which processes credit cards and applies a fee of 4.75%. Charity Navigator claims that this…
NYC update: People still have problems
We met with New Visions for Public Schools on Friday afternoon. The contrast with the Children’s Aid Society meeting was instructive. CAS met us for lunch; New Visions met us in a conference room. (I like food, but I think we’re going to avoid lunch meetings in the future so we don’t end up with…
The big question: Is our project 1.0 or 2.0?
I’d like to open this post by thanking whatever visionary had the idea to start adding “2.0” to the end of everything. Benefits to society already include Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Office 2.0, Business 2.0, and Learning 2.0. I don’t really know what most of these are, but I can only assume that we’re now…
Straw man? Or 75% of the population?
I’ve been ranting about how ridiculous it is to judge a charity by the % of its funds that go to administrative expenses, which I’ve dubbed the “Straw Ratio” because I was too lazy to find a prominent advocate of it so I just invented a Straw Man. Well, it turns out there quite a…
Food, friendz, and figuring out how to improve the world
Elie and I had lunch with three people representing the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) yesterday. At this point we aren’t used to having meetings without a wiki handy for note-taking – and dealing with corn chowder at the same time intensified the challenge – but here are the highlights of what I remember: The meeting…