Providing clean water to people living in developing countries is a cause that many donors are interested in. Among other hardships, unclean water can lead to diseases such as diarrhea, which is responsible for millions of child deaths annually. Unfortunately, we have found little evidence that charities’ efforts to improve water infrastructure in the developing…
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Are great charities made or born?
Among the groups in our “meta-philanthropy” space, one of the big questions is how to create more “high-impact” (also called “blue-chip”) charities: the rare groups that can reliably, demonstrably translate donations into improved lives. The rough consensus seems to be that we need to fund and support “high-performance organizations”: groups that have “some, but not…
Thoughts on “Moonshine or the kids?”
Nicholas Kristof’s recent column argues that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households. This argument has provoked…
Please take 3 minutes to help us set priorities
We’re collecting information about people’s favorite causes/charities and giving habits to help us set our research priorities and provide the best service possible. The link below goes to a survey that should take you about 3 minutes. Whether you’re a major supporter or you’ve never used GiveWell’s research before, please fill it out. We appreciate…
How the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure spend their money
This year, we’ve been looking into the cause of disease research. We’re trying to find outstanding organizations for donors interested giving to help out with research efforts to develop cures, or new treatments, to cancer and other diseases. We figured that a logical place to start would be with two big-name organizations: the American Cancer…
Futility of standardized metrics: An example
We often hear calls to “standardize metrics” so that nonprofits’ outcomes can be compared directly to each other. As an example of why we find this idea unpromising, I’d like to review some of our work on the first cause we ever investigated: employment assistance in NYC. We received 19 applications from employment assistance programs…