We’ve been accused many times (including here and here) of trying to take the emotion out of charity. That doesn’t make any sense to me – I can’t think of any reason to do charity other than emotion (call me crazy, but I’ve found that disobeying the Categorical Imperative doesn’t bother me). It is true…
The GiveWell Blog
Month: March 2007
Metrics: Between losing your humanity and throwing up your hands
We’ve written a heck of a lot about what “measurements” should and shouldn’t be applied to charitable work – that’s what we spend a lot of our time thinking about, seeing as how we’re trying to figure out where to donate and all. Here’s a roundup of what we think. It’s a long post, but…
The Straw Ratio: Closing thoughts (for now)
I’ve done an arguably excessive amount of ranting on what I’ve dubbed the “Straw Ratio”: the idea that we can find the best charities by seeing what percentage of their total expenses goes to program expenses, or, in Straw Man parlance, goes “straight to the people who need it.” It’s about time for me to…
Even Google has been suckered
If my extended, multi-post rant on the Straw Ratio has been at all convincing to you, you should be concerned about what the Internet thinks “charity evaluation” means. I’m not just talking about the top result, but about the whole shebang. Give.org’s criteria don’t say a single thing about the nature or effectiveness of a…
Test my wings? That would mean less time for flying!
Measuring success at helping people is hard; it has inherent limits; it’s time-consuming; and it’s expensive. But it has to be done. The first reason is that no matter how much sense an idea makes in your head, translating it to reality is another matter. I’d argue that acceptance of this basic idea is the…
Tears of straw
It’s very unlikely – maybe impossible – that the Straw Ratio bothers you as much as it bothers me. So I’m going to try to spill out all the ranting I have left on this topic over the next few posts, and then we’ll completely be done with it, at least until the next time…