Quick Start Guide | GiveWell
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Quick Start Guide
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About GiveWell GiveWell is a nonprofit dedicated to finding outstanding giving opportunities and publishing the full details of our analysis to help donors decide where to give. Our goal is to help donors have the greatest impact for every dollar donated. GiveWell grew out of a group of donors who wanted to figure out where to donate their own money to do the most good. Answering that question turned out to be a full-time project: two of the group's members, Elie Hassenfeld and Holden Karnofsky, left their jobs to found GiveWell in 2007. Unlike charity evaluators that focus solely on financials, such as a charity’s overhead, we conduct in-depth research aiming to determine how much good a given charity accomplishes in terms of lives saved or improved with each donation. Rather than try to rate as many charities as possible, we focus on recommending the few charities that represent the best giving opportunities we can find. In 2018, we tracked over $140 million in donations to the charities we recommend as a result of our research. More About GiveWell What others are saying Our impact How We Find Charities We spend each year looking for new top charities that are characterized by a strong evidence base, high cost-effectiveness, room for more funding, and transparency. Charities can apply directly for a GiveWell recommendation; we also invite charities that implement promising programs to apply. We publish a list annually of charities we feel represent the best giving opportunities we’re aware of. We also identify and support potential future top charities through GiveWell Incubation Grants. Our criteria Our process for finding top charities Pros and cons of our top charities Follow Our Recommendations