A recent Scientific American post discusses a study that may indicate an emergence of “behavioral resistance” to insecticide-treated nets. Mosquitoes in Benin were found to shift their “mean catching time” (roughly speaking, the time of day when they were most likely to be active) from 2-3am to 5am; this may indicate changing behavior to attack…
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Giving to GiveWell’s recommended charities helps GiveWell
GiveWell does not solicit donations from the general public. We cover our operating expenses mostly by privately soliciting donations from people (and institutions) who are big fans of our work. This allows us to operate – when dealing with those outside our “inner circle” – as a pure advisor, without having to “compete with our…
Evaluating people
A crucial consideration, when evaluating a giving opportunity, is: “Who are the people involved?” I believe that any given project is likely to run into many factors that are unexpected (or can’t be captured in the evaluation process), and indeed that such unexpected factors often dominate the expected factors. Therefore, no matter how promising a…
Sharing notes from conversations: Case study in pursuing transparency in philanthropy
Early in our history, we got most of our information in the form of documents: grant applications and other documents sent to us by charities, academic literature, etc. Being transparent about why we believe what we believe was thus relatively straightforward: we sought to publish whatever documents we could. Over time, phone and in-person conversations…
Updated thoughts on our key criteria
For years, the 3 key things we’ve looked for in a charity have been (a) evidence of effectiveness; (b) cost-effectiveness; (c) room for more funding. Over time, however, our attitude toward all three of these things – and the weight that we should put on our analysis of each – has changed. This post discusses…
Surveying the research on a topic
We’ve previously discussed how we evaluate a single study. For the questions we try to answer, though, it’s rarely sufficient to consult a single study; studies are specific to a particular time, place, and context, and to get a robust answer to a question like “Do insecticide-treated nets reduce child mortality?” one should conduct –…