Nathaniel Whittemore’s Social Entrepreneurship Blog asks bloggers for “one thing you need to know before you donate to charity this holiday season.” My answer: you need to know that your favorite social program might just not work.

This isn’t a warning against fraud or inefficiency (though both of those are important too). It’s a warning against programs that just don’t change people’s lives in the way we hope – even if they seem to make perfect sense, and even if they’re carried out perfectly.

The first $17,000 I ever donated (personally) was to programs that I now believe don’t work. During my years in the finance industry, I gave to the best organizations I could find for improving education (jr. high and high school) in NYC.

I considered education my favorite cause. I assumed that equality of schooling was the key to equality of opportunity. I didn’t have the time or the energy to question this assumption. I now believe this assumption is badly wrong, for reasons that are outlined here.

I wish I could take that money back: de-fund the “small schools” and extracurricular activities I supported (both of these are programs I now know to have very questionable, if not negative, track records) and instead fund programs for early childhood (where I believe inequality of opportunity really begins) or international aid (where it’s far more drastic).

I wish that money had gone to organizations that I really believe are changing lives in a significant and lasting way, but it didn’t. Please don’t make my mistake.

There are great-sounding programs out there, based on one theory or another of what the roots of poverty and opportunity are. When put under the microscope, many of these great-sounding programs just don’t work, most likely because they simply didn’t take the right approach to the complicated problems they’re trying to solve. Many more of these programs are unexamined and unproven.

Charities that will put your money into proven ways of helping people are the exception, not the rule. They’re not necessarily easy to find. They’re not necessarily the same ones that knock on your door and get your friends excited. This season, with or without GiveWell’s help, I hope you find one.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports strong results from a clinical trial testing the efficacy of a malaria vaccine. The double-blind, randomized trial found a significant impact on malaria incidence among the group receiving the malaria vaccine.

The full study is available here.

The summary results:

• 894 children were randomly assigned to receive the either the malaria vaccine or hte control vaccine.
• Among the children who completed the study according to the protocol, 32 of 402 (8%) who received the malaria vaccine developed clinical malaria and 66 of 407 (16%) in the control group did.
• Results were similar when all 894 children were included in the intention-to-treat analysis.
• Results were similar in both the trial locations (Tanzania and Kenya).

(h/t Chris Blattman)

I’ll be on NPR Marketplace today, talking about why we think you can do more good by putting time into researching your giving than into volunteering. Local air times/stations here. I expect the audio will be online afterward (at which point I’ll edit it into this post).

The first question I have for any charity is, “What do you do?” Not “What are you trying to accomplish?” (example: “Fight AIDS”) but “What activities are you carrying out and where?” (example: “School-based education programs emphasizing protection in Mozambique”).

It’s a simple question, and an obviously important one: as the Disease Control Priorities Report makes quite clear, some program types have strong track records and some have none (or negative) track records.

But at least in the area of international aid, “What do you do?” can be a difficult question to answer.

Example: Africare

Take Africare for example. Go to the homepage and you’ll see press releases from scattered programs. Click Programs and you’ll see goals/categories (“HIV/AIDS,” “Health,” etc.) Clicking Learn more for HIV/AIDS takes you to an overview of the problem of HIV/AIDS. Now an “Africare Programs” tab appears at the top, giving you the following list:

• HIV prevention
• HIV/AIDS counseling and testing
• Treatment, palliative care and other support for people living with HIV, AIDS and TB/HIV
• Support for AIDS orphans

The 2nd and 3rd of these are fairly clear (though these activities do come in different “flavors” – for example, ART treatment with and without supplementary feeding). The 4th eventually links to another page with more detail. But “HIV prevention” can mean many things: abstinence education, prevention education, peer-based/school-based/media-based programs, condom distribution, circumcision and more. And, we still don’t know where any of this takes place.

In Africare’s case, the answer to my question turns out to be on pages 19-22 of the Annual Report. Africare runs a dizzying array of programs, each sponsored by a particular set of donors. To me it appears to be almost a “subcontractor” organization, carrying out what its major donors want rather than pursuing any particular strategy of its own. (More on this idea in a future post.)

No help from the Form 990

The IRS Form 990 is supposed to be the source for basic public information on a charity. But while it tells you plenty about revenues, expenses, and assets, it rarely answers the “What do you do?” question. Charities are asked only to provide only a brief, overarching mission statement.

As a result, you can’t find out what Africare does from its GuideStar report (free registration required) or its Charity Navigator report.

Creating a database

We wish there were a database that told us what activities charities carry out and where. Such a database wouldn’t, by itself, answer the “Where should I donate?” question we’re eventually trying to get to. But it would be a huge help, and it doesn’t exist right now.

So we’re trying to create it. We’ve found that you can usually uncover what a charity does with enough digging (as in the above case). Now we’re trying to capture this information for all or nearly all international aid organizations that are (a) relatively large (b) US-registered public charities.

This is the main work we’re looking for a prospective new hire to do.

Nicholas Kristof chimes in. Our previous coverage here.

We want to thank the people who have invested the most of their own time and/or money to date. We’re lucky to be working on a project that brings out the passion and energy of such great people.

Our donors and GiveWell Pledgers. Now including not only former coworkers, but ~60 people with no previous connection to us who have donated or pledged. These “early adopters” are putting big chunks of their charitable budget behind our research – adding evidence, one donor at a time, to the notion that proving effectiveness can be a fundraising strategy.

Our Board of Directors, which has significantly stepped up its involvement and commitment this year.

Omar K, Gordon S, Tom R, and Ari H, who have been particularly aggressive – and successful – in getting us in front of potential donors and pledgers.

Simon K, Nick B, Brian S, Ron N, and Damian B, our strongest volunteers. They’ve done valuable work for our developing-world research.

Rob S and Phil S, who have taken on “mentor” roles, providing regular feedback on our plans and progress.

Peter Singer, Matthew Bonds, and Molly M, who act as “research advisors”: people with significant on-the-ground aid experience and/or significant knowledge of relevant literature, who provide regular feedback on our ongoing research.

Miriam M, Teddy K, David C, and Jordan of Fresh Milk Design for their feedback on our marketing materials and efforts.

Our friends and family for continuing to put up with us.