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      Jump to Navigation             GiveWell        Giving EffectivelyGiving 101 Your Donation Can Change Someone's Life The Wrong Donation Can Accomplish Nothing Your Dollar Goes Further Overseas Your Dollar Goes Further When You Fund the Right Program Quick Start Guide  How We WorkWho We Are Process Criteria Transparency Evaluations of GiveWell Research FAQ Core Competencies  Top CharitiesMalaria Consortium Against Malaria Foundation Helen Keller International Deworm the World Initiative SCI Foundation Sightsavers The END Fund GiveDirectly Standout Charities  ResearchCharity Site Visits Notes from Research Conversations Intervention Reports Cost-Effectiveness Analyses Other Charity Reviews GiveWell Incubation Grants  Our Mistakes AboutAbout GiveWell Progress to Date Our Story Our People Official Records Reputation Impact Frequently Asked Questions Donate Contact Us Jobs  UpdatesBlog RSS Feeds Stay Updated           Enter search terms here.   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            You are hereHome » About » Our Story Our Story     FacebookTwitter>Print>Email                   Last Updated: February 2018

   GiveWell started with a simple question: Where should I donate? As a group of eight friends, employed in the finance industry and researching these questions in our spare time, we discovered that finding the best giving opportunities isn't a part-time job. The issues charities address—from fighting disease in Africa to improving education in the U.S.—are extremely complex, and useful information about what different charities do and whether it works is rarely publicly available. When we asked private foundations to share what they'd found and help us with our decisions, they refused. We believe that information about how to help people should never be secret.

 We also believe that small donors matter. Small donors help charities develop broad, diverse bases of support, which provide stability for charities to plan and grow. And if we guide even a small portion of individual donors—who are responsible for the vast majority of giving in the United States—to the best giving opportunities we can find, we would signal to the international aid sector that effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and transparency are important to donors. Ultimately, these actions could help change the rules of the game: We picture a market that rewards charities for their ability to help people, not just for their marketing.

 In 2007, two members of the group, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld (bios), left our jobs, raised $300,000 in startup funds from former coworkers who believed in us and our mission, and started GiveWell as a full-time project. 

 The full history of our progress and business plans, detailing our efforts since then, is available on our progress page. Notably, we incubated the Open Philanthropy Project at GiveWell, which became a separate entity in June 2017.

 You can get a more detailed, referenced version of our story here.

                           Contact Stay updated FAQ For Charities Site map Privacy Policy Jobs       Follow Us: Facebook Twitter RSS   Subscribe to email updates:  GiveWell, aka The Clear Fund (a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity), was founded in 2007. We serve donors across the Globe; GiveWell's donors are based primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Canada. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share alike 3.0 United States License              try { clicky.init(78566); }catch(e){} 

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