Non-profit transparency (and why we think our charities are pretty great at it)

Transparency is often mentioned as a key criterion in evaluating non-profits, both in and outside the effective giving movement. Obviously this is slightly circular, as it’s also central to our ability to evaluate a charity in the first place. This is why GiveWell both includes transparency as a metric and requires it as a characteristic of any non-profit aspiring to be a “top charity”:

We examine potential top charities thoroughly and skeptically, and publish detailed reviews discussing strengths of these charities as well as concerns related to their work or room for more funding. We also follow top charities' progress over time and report on it publicly, including any negative developments. Charities must be open to our intensive investigation process — and public discussion of their track record and progress, both the good and the bad — in order to earn "top charity" status.

https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/criteria

We are proud of the levels of transparency in the charities we fundraise for. Any donor can see, essentially in real time, what the charity is achieving and how donations are being put to use. Many of our charities also publish thoughtful pieces on their failures and mistakes, which is invaluable, as the non-profit sector is generally averse to this.

Partly, of course, this is a virtuous cycle - the funding security provided by effective giving allows charities to be more honest than those who think that a shift in public opinion could bankrupt them.

Transparency also comes in different forms. One part is the overall performance and running of the organization - what are they doing well, what challenges do they face, how are they performing relative to their goals, what could they be doing better?

This is where we have seen high profile public failures at charities like Kid’s Company, where the public narrative of its operations hid significant flaws in management, leadership and finances.

The second is transparency around the actual delivery of programmes, especially the use of funds, the number of outcomes achieved and the actual impact of those outcomes.

One fairly strong, mainstream example of this from a funder is the Department for International Development in the UK, which subjects all its grants to independent, fairly frank evaluations (although these are not always made public and have sometimes been accused of ‘grade inflation’).

In this second area in particular, we think that many of our charities are ground-breaking.

A great example of this is the Against Malaria Foundation. Any AMF donor has access to their own donation page with a raft of information on the use of every single donation. We have made the One for the World page public - please take a look if you have time: https://www.AgainstMalaria.com/oftw

The page (viewed here on 4/1/20) shows an astonishing level of detail on how donations are being used

Every donation is listed, along with the destination country of the nets it funded and their stage of deployment (pre-manufacture> manufacture> ready at factory> on board ship> arrived in country> on way to zone> being distributed> distribution complete).

This can then be easily translated into outcomes (the number of nets and people helped) using a set unit cost in the back end. It can also (slightly less easily!) be translated into impact, using the many public reviews of AMF’s long term effects. If you’d like to see an example, try GiveWell’s write up here.

These impact evaluations largely use randomized control trials and follow up surveys to judge medium- and long-term changes attributable to bednet use.

I asked Rob Mather, found of AMF, about the process for maintaining this level of information.

He explained that the first step is to allocate every donation to a particular distribution in their database. This distribution is then updated by staff as it is commissioned, manufactured and deployed, allowing public and private donation pages to show each donation’s ‘journey’.

In order to keep the data accurate, AMF liaises with manufacturers to track the manufacturing process; they track individual ships to know departure and arrival days (and may make this publicly available at some point, so donors can see their nets’ progress at sea on a real time map); and then they liaise with partners in-country, and process requests to move nets and accountability documentation, to track where nets are (on way to zone, being distributed etc.).

The overall effect is an audited, publicly stated theory of change, with donors able to see in great detail how their donations are being used and then extrapolate the impact of their money.

AMF has clearly invested a huge amount in the architecture of this, which speaks to their philosophical commitment to transparency. We think AMF and our other charities are genuinely world-leading in this regard; and we’re delighted to show the impact of One for the World members’ donations on our public AMF page going forward.

Rob Mather is joining us for a webinar presentation and Q&A on 10th April. To find out details and sign up, please check out our events page.