Footnotes for Q1/Q2 2020 Maximum Impact Fund update | GiveWell
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You are hereHome » Footnotes for Q1/Q2 2020 Maximum Impact Fund update
Footnotes for Q1/Q2 2020 Maximum Impact Fund update
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[1] Donors collectively gave $11.7 million to "Grants to recommended charities at GiveWell's discretion," which we recently renamed the "Maximum Impact Fund," in the first half of 2020. As always, we grant these funds where we believe they will have the most impact. In addition to this $11.7 million, we disbursed the following large, individual donations as part of our flexible funding: $3.6 million was from a donor who provided GiveWell with unrestricted funding. Unlike "Grants to recommended charities" funding, unrestricted funding may be used to support our operations. We chose to grant this portion of the donor's gift because GiveWell will only fund up to 20% of our operations from a single donor, and this donor had exceeded that amount. We included this funding in our $15.3 million grant to AMF. $8 million was from a donor who gave to GiveWell to allocate to our top charities but wanted the funding to be distributed sooner than we planned to allocate our "Grants to recommended charities" funding. We decided to grant these funds to Malaria Consortium's seasonal malaria chemoprevention program. We discuss this in the "Other options considered" section of the post. [2] Our most recent estimate is that AMF averts a death for between $4,000 and $5,000. We use the more conservative estimate here, as we think it is appropriate to be conservative when sharing impact estimates. $15.3 million divided by $5,000 per life saved = 3,000 lives. GiveWell: 2020 cost-effectiveness analysis — version 1, "AMF" tab, cell B219. [3] For information on AMF's work, see Against Malaria Foundation: AMF activity update: March to May 2020 (archive). [4] In November 2019, we wrote that we were not planning to make a large grant to AMF, beyond the incentive funding each of our top charities receives for engaging with our process, until we resolved three questions: "We decided not to recommend filling AMF's room for more funding beyond the $2.5 million incentive grant. Over the next few months, we plan to revisit the possibility of making a large grant to AMF. Our decision will rely on what 2020 distribution agreements AMF signs in the near future (if any); how well we are able to answer outstanding questions we have about AMF's monitoring; and, if available, results from AMF's 2019 distributions in DRC, where it is likely to commit marginal funding." GiveWell: Recommendation to Open Philanthropy for Grants to Top Charities, November 2019. At the time we decided to allocate additional funds to AMF, monitoring from AMF's 2019 distributions in DRC was not yet available. AMF was planning to conduct this monitoring in August 2020, and we did not expect to see results until after our grant decision was made. This is a limitation in our understanding of AMF's planned work. [5] GiveWell's room for more funding analysis for AMF [2019], "Funding commitments," cell B5. [6] The total in uncommitted funding was $4,157,598. GiveWell's room for more funding analysis for AMF [June 2020], "Available and expected funding (overview)," cell B11. [7] AMF told us that it would prioritize the following distributions with the grant funding: Two provinces in DRC: Kasai and Kasai Oriental ($13.7 million). The distribution is scheduled for January and February 2022, which would be 36 to 38 months since nets were last distributed in those locations. AMF believes that nets should ideally be distributed every 30 months because of evidence showing that net coverage is low after this point. This is consistent with the evidence we've seen from smaller-scale AMF distributions in DRC in 2014 and 2016 and from a previous, non-AMF distribution in DRC: A follow-up study of AMF nets (for a distribution in DRC that ended in June 2016) found that after 24 months, 31% of nets remained in the households in usable condition. Summary of AMF PDM results and methods [2019], Results tab, cell H55. A 36-month follow-up study of non-AMF nets conducted by the National Malaria Control Program and the Kinshasa School of Public Health in DRC found that "overall survival in serviceable condition during the last survey [at 36 months] was 37% in Sud Ubangi and just 17% in Mongala." USAID, Durability monitoring of LLINs in Democratic Republic of Congo, Final Report, after 36 months follow-up, July 2019 (archive), Pg 4.