We’ve gotten some questions about whether we plan to research charities working on animal welfare, so I wanted to share my thoughts on the cause. It’s easy for me to believe that animals often are treated horribly, and live in horrible conditions, relative to people (even people living under the international poverty line). I believe…
The GiveWell Blog
Month: December 2010
Guest post from Jason Fehr
This is a guest post from Jason Fehr about how he decided what charity to support for his most recent donation. We requested this post along the lines of earlier posts by Ian Turner and Dario Amodei. Before proceeding, I’d like to thank Dario Amodei and Ian Turner for their excellent guest posts earlier this…
The best charity that no one has heard of: Response roundup
Two weeks ago, we issued a challenge for people to help our top-rated charity, VillageReach, tell its story in a more compelling way. We got a lot of responses, many of them very thoughtful and interesting. Here’s a summary. Making it personal (and tangible) Many of the suggestions revolved around telling tangible, personal stories of…
Giving season update
We’re about halfway through December, which is historically when the vast majority of donations go through our website. Here’s a quick update on where things stand. So far this year, we’ve seen significantly more money (over 3x as much) go to our recommended charities, directly through the GiveWell website, compared to last year. The second…
The best charity that no one has heard of: How would you tell its story?
We’ve spent years looking for the most outstanding organizations we can find – organizations with demonstrable, cost-effective, powerful impacts on people’s lives. As of now, out of hundreds examined with a systematic process, we’ve found one that we think is particularly outstanding. It isn’t just outstanding by our criteria – it’s also strong on a…
Joint release on finding the best charities, not just avoiding the worst
Last year, we and many other groups came together in a joint press release on the “worst way to pick a charity.”. We argued that the simple, “one-size-fits-all” metric of the overhead ratio is a red herring, and that deeper analysis is needed to make sure your gift accomplishes good. But many donors don’t have…