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.
Our bottom line
We recommend three top charities implementing programs whose primary benefit is reducing deaths. They are:
- Malaria Consortium’s seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) program
- Helen Keller International (HKI)’s vitamin A supplementation (VAS) program
- Against Malaria Foundation (AMF)
Five of our top charities implement programs that aim to increase recipients’ incomes and consumption. They are:
- Evidence Action’s Deworm the World Initiative
- Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI)
- Sightsavers’ deworming program
- END Fund’s deworming program
- GiveDirectly
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.
Where do we recommend donors give?
- We recommend that donors choose the “Grants to recommended charities at GiveWell’s discretion” option on our donation forms. We grant these funds quarterly to the GiveWell top charity or top charities where we believe they can do the most good.
- If you prefer to give to a specific charity, we believe that all of our top charities are outstanding and will use additional funding effectively. If we had additional funds to allocate now, the most likely recipient would be Malaria Consortium to scale up its work providing seasonal malaria chemoprevention.
- If you have supported GiveWell’s operations in the past, we ask that you maintain your support. If you have not supported GiveWell’s operations in the past, we ask that you consider designating 10 percent of your donation to help fund GiveWell’s operations.
How should donors give?
- For donors giving up to $1,000, we recommend donating by credit card here.
- If you’re planning to give more than $1,000, we recommend donating by check, bank transfer, or securities transfer.
- This page has additional options for donating. Check out our tips for giving efficiently to maximize the impact of your donation.
Conference call to discuss recommendations
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.
Additional details
Below, we provide:
- An overview of the research we conducted in 2018 that was directly relevant to these recommendations. More
- An explanation of changes to our recommended charity list and of major updates in the past year. More
- The funding allocation that we are recommending to Good Ventures and our top charities’ remaining room for more funding. More
- Our recommendations for people interested in supporting our top charities. More