The GiveWell Blog

Celebrated charities that we don’t recommend

Normally, we focus on identifying outstanding charities, and minimize the time spent on opaque or otherwise lackluster ones. But lately, we’ve gone into a bit more detail about our take on several of the best-known and most appealing charities out there. What all of the charities below have in common is that (a) we have…

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What we know about Robin Hood (almost nothing)

One of the charities we’re often asked about is the Robin Hood foundation. Partly because we used to work at a hedge fund and Robin Hood is big in the hedge fund world; partly because we emphasize analytical, impact-focused giving and Robin Hood has a reputation for analytical, impact-focused giving. Robin Hood works mostly in…

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Robin Hood, Smile Train and the “0% overhead” donor illusion

For an organization focused on financial metrics, the American Institute of Philanthropy can be very interesting. I can’t do justice to this excellent article on Smile Train with an excerpt, and I urge you to read it all. It thoroughly debunks an alleged claim by Smile Train that “100% of your donation goes toward programs…

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