Recently, we did something that may strike many GiveWell followers as out of character. We recommended a $100,000 grant to the US Cochrane Center, despite the fact that we have done relatively little investigation of it so far (compared with our investigations of current top charities)—and have many unanswered questions. Good Ventures, which helped with… Read More
The GiveWell Blog
Month: September 2012
Recent board meeting on GiveWell’s evolution
[Added August 27, 2014: GiveWell Labs is now known as the Open Philanthropy Project.] This year, GiveWell has been evolving in a couple of significant ways: We’ve been exploring giving opportunities that may involve restricted/project-specific funding (as opposed to unrestricted support of charities), as well as giving opportunities that could be relatively speculative, hard to… Read More
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… Read More
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 –… Read More