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June 2012

GiveWell and Good Ventures

by Holden Karnofsky Published June 28, 2012

Note: Before the launch of the Open Philanthropy Project Blog, this post appeared on the GiveWell Blog. Uses of “we” and “our” in the below post may refer to the Open Philanthropy Project or to GiveWell as an organization. Additional comments may be available at the original post.

Last year, we met Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz of Good Ventures, a new foundation that is planning eventually on giving substantial amounts (Dustin and Cari aim to give the majority of their net worth within their lifetimes; Dustin is the co-founder of Facebook and, more recently, Asana). We immediately established that Good Ventures and GiveWell share some core values that relatively few others seem to share: [node:read-more:link]

Objections and Concerns About Our New Direction

by Holden Karnofsky Published June 22, 2012

Note: The Open Philanthropy Project was formerly known as GiveWell Labs. Before the launch of the Open Philanthropy Project Blog, this post appeared on the GiveWell Blog. Uses of “we” and “our” in the below post may refer to the Open Philanthropy Project or to GiveWell as an organization. Additional comments may be available at the original post.

GiveWell has recently been taking on activities that may seem to represent a pretty substantial change of direction, especially for those who think of us as a “charity evaluator focused on saving the most lives per dollar spent.” [node:read-more:link]

Meta-Research

by Holden Karnofsky Published June 11, 2012

Note: The Open Philanthropy Project was formerly known as GiveWell Labs. Before the launch of the Open Philanthropy Project Blog, this post appeared on the GiveWell Blog. Uses of “we” and “our” in the below post may refer to the Open Philanthropy Project or to GiveWell as an organization. Additional comments may be available at the original post.

We previously laid out our working set of focus areas for GiveWell Labs. This post further elaborates on the cause of “meta-research” and explains why meta-research is currently a very high priority for us - it is our #2 highest-priority focus area, after global health and nutrition. [node:read-more:link]