GiveWell has teamed up with Saundra Schimmelpfenig of Good Intentions Are Not Enough to produce Think Before You Give, a podcast aimed at helping to empower and educate donors. We enjoy Saundra’s work and are happy to be working with her on this. The Think Before You Give website now has the first podcast available….
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TakeAction @ GuideStar
We are thrilled to announce a partnership with GuideStar via its new feature, TakeAction @ GuideStar. TakeAction allows donors to select a cause that interests them and see general information as well as recommended charities, with content provided by GiveWell, Philanthropedia, and Great Nonprofits. To date, GuideStar has provided only basic information, and only information…
A good response re: diversion of skilled labor
I previously expressed concerns about diversion of skilled labor: the possibility that nonprofits are outbidding the local private sector for top local talent. John de Wit of the Small Enterprise Foundation emailed us with a response: On the question of whether we divert skilled labour from other potentially productive pursuits let me try to comment…
A proposal for donors interested in causes/charities we haven’t covered
I was talking with a friend of mine recently about how he decides which charities to support, and he said: I really like the GiveWell approach, but there are two reasons it’s not practical for me to base most of my charitable decisions on it. First, you just haven’t covered a lot of the areas…
Nothing wrong with selfish giving – just don’t call it philanthropy
Tactical Philanthropy has an interesting discussion of “non-optimized giving”: New Philanthropy Capital CEO Martin Brookes “confesses” to “wasting charitable funds” on a cause he doesn’t believe is the best, and Sean responds that “Under your logic, we should all feel guilty about all of our giving that does not go to the single best charity…
Pictures/audio/notes from my visits to Small Enterprise Foundation (South Africa) and VillageReach (Mozambique)
Between 2/10 and 2/23, I visited two of our recommended charities: The Small Enterprise Foundation (our top-rated microfinance organization and one of two winners of our recent Economic Empowerment Grant – note that our review is not yet available but has been drafted and will be published shortly) and VillageReach (our current top-rated charity overall)….