Chris Blattman cites our advice on using academic research and asks for “Other suggestions for the profession.” We have several and this seemed like a good time to share them. Our suggestions should be taken in context, of course. On one hand, we do not have staff with backgrounds in academia; there’s a lot we…
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Internal debate on the goals of giving to charity
A donor wrote to us recently with a question (paraphrased): Is it better to help people who cannot currently live a decent life or to help those who might be better off to start with but have more potential to live enjoyable and meaningful lives? Ideally the answer to this question would be “let’s help…
More Than Good Intentions by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel: Our review
A few disclosures regarding this book: Innovations for Poverty Action is a client of Sona Partners, and Tim Ogden of Sona Partners sits on our Board. We are currently considering Innovations for Poverty Action for a recommendation. We sent the authors of the book an early draft of this review and have made modifications after…
Three Cups of Tea scandal: Why we had the right bottom line on the Central Asia Institute
There has been a lot of coverage of the scandals around the Central Asia Institute. The founder has been accused of fabricating inspiring stories, as well as of spending less than half of the millions of dollars he’s raised on building schools. The Central Asia Institute receives four stars from Charity Navigator (archived) and had…
PSI rating change
We recently published an updated review of PSI based on conversations over the past year with PSI staff and additional analysis. We now rate PSI as a “Notable” organization, and no longer list it among our top-rated charities. (Note that PSI is not the only organization whose rating changed in 2010: we similarly “downgraded” both…
Assorted links 4/5/11
A few links from the past month that we aren’t doing full posts on, but might be of interest for people interested in effective giving: Via Chris Blattman, a randomized controlled trial “find[s] no evidence that teacher incentives increase student performance, attendance, or graduation, nor … any evidence that the incentives change student or teacher…