Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
You can view our December 2018 open thread here.
Today, we announced a grantmaking process to look for outstanding organizations operating in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh.
We’re working with Affinity Impact, a social impact initiative founded by the children of a Taiwanese entrepreneur, to provide three grants—one $250,000, and two $25,000 grants—to organizations that are operating programs in global health and development in any of the following countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam.
One of the goals of this grantmaking process is to help us better understand the giving opportunities in a geography in which we haven’t previously focused, and to learn from the grantmaking process whether doing so is an effective way to engage with philanthropists who don’t plan to support our current top charities. An overview of this process is available here. Details of the application process are here. Applications are due on April 1, 2019.
If you represent an organization applying or considering applying for the grant and have any additional questions, please contact us directly via email at applications@givewell.org and mention that you’re applying for the “2019 GiveWell Grants for Global Health and Development in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh.” We will try to respond as quickly as possible.
If you’re thinking about where to give to charity this year and it would be helpful to speak with a member of GiveWell’s staff about your decision, please let us know. We’re happy to answer questions sent to info@givewell.org or to schedule a call via the form here.
On a call, we’d be glad to:
Due to limited staff capacity, it’s possible we won’t be able to speak with everyone who requests a call, although based on past experience we hope to be able to connect with anyone who gets in touch.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
You can view our September 2018 open thread here.
For this post, GiveWell staff members wrote up the thinking behind their personal donations for the year. We made similar posts in previous years.1See our staff giving posts from 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. Staff are listed in order of their start dates at GiveWell.
You can click the below links to jump to a staff member’s entry:
We’re excited to share our list of top charities for the 2018 giving season. We recommend eight top charities, all of which we also recommended last year.
We recommend three top charities implementing programs whose primary benefit is reducing deaths. They are:
Five of our top charities implement programs that aim to increase recipients’ incomes and consumption. They are:
These charities represent the best opportunities we’re aware of to help people, according to our criteria. We expect GiveWell’s recommendations to direct more than $100 million to these organizations collectively over the next year. We expect our top charities to be able to effectively absorb hundreds of millions of dollars beyond that amount.
Our list of top charities is the same as it was last year, with the exception of Evidence Action’s No Lean Season. We removed No Lean Season from the list following our review of the results of a 2017 study of the program.
We also recognize a group of standout charities. We believe these charities are implementing programs that are evidence-backed and may be extremely cost-effective. However, we do not feel as confident in the impact of these organizations as we do in our top charities. We provide more information about our standout organizations here.
We’re holding a conference call on Tuesday, December 4, at 12pm ET/9am PT to discuss our latest recommendations and to answer any questions you have. Sign up here to join the call.
Below, we provide: