The Wrong Donation Can Accomplish Nothing | GiveWell
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You are hereHome » Giving Effectively » Giving 101 » The Wrong Donation Can Accomplish Nothing
The Wrong Donation Can Accomplish Nothing
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Charities' fundraising materials make it seem obvious that their programs are changing lives. Are charities really accomplishing what they say they are? Are they making a difference?
Conventionally, most people expect that charities are probably accomplishing good unless there's proof that money is being misappropriated. We disagree. We think that charities can easily fail to have impact, even when they're doing exactly what they say they are.
The case of PlayPumps, a charity that installs merry-go-rounds that double as water pumps in Africa, is illustrative. Tim Harford, an economist and journalist, and William MacAskill, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford, have discussed this example at length. A brief summary of MacAskill's description of PlayPumps is below:
PlayPumps, which were intended to replace something negative (the challenges of pumping water) with something positive (a new, easier system for acquiring water, plus a new piece of play equipment for children), received a lot of positive attention from the media, celebrities, and the international aid community. However, after PlayPumps were installed in villages across a number of African countries, it came to light that the PlayPumps weren't all they were intended to be: Children found playing on the PlayPumps exhausting and women ended up having to push the merry-go-round around themselves to pump water; the PlayPumps were more expensive, pumped less water, and were more challenging to maintain than the hand pumps they had replaced. Some individuals in the villages said they preferred the old pumps to the new PlayPumps.1
It's not that surprising. We think that many of the problems charities aim to address are extremely difficult problems that foundations, governments and experts have struggled with for decades. Many well-funded, well-executed, logical programs haven't had the desired results. Given the lack of a successful track record of solving such complex problems, any charity claiming to have "the answer" bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that their programs are working. Most charities can't provide this type of evidence. Collecting evidence is expensive, and we've found that even many excellent charities don't do this. (For more, see Most Charities' Evidence.)
Furthermore, many giving donations are motivated by personal connections: a friend asks you to support a cause, or you know someone who suffered from a disease that the charity fights. As a result, charities raise money based on their ability to market themselves and fundraise, as opposed to their ability to change lives. Because charities aren't being held accountable based on impact, there are probably a lot of charities that continue to raise and spend money but don't make any difference at all.
Does that mean that a given charity's programs don't work? Not necessarily. But, it does mean that it's important to look beyond marketing claims and stories when deciding where to make a donation.Next