philanthropy.com
Some Donors Rely on Charity-Evaluation Group for Decisions
about GIVE WELL
By Ben Gose
People who push the idea of effective altruism—using data and reason rather than passion alone to determine the most effective way to give— don’t just want to do some good: They want to achieve the most that they possibly can with their time and money.
Identifying the world’s best charities is the tricky part for effective altruists and for everyone else. Many people in the effective-altruism movement rely on the recommendations of GiveWell, a nonprofit founded in 2007, well before the term “effective altruism” caught on. GiveWell, started by two former hedge-fund analysts, seeks to identify the charities that stand above the rest and offer the best giving opportunities.
“The founding idea of GiveWell was basically effective altruism,” says Holden Karnofsky, a co-founder of the group. “The goal from day one was doing as much good as possible with the dollars that we had.”
GiveWell, known for tough scrutiny of charities and a transparent evaluation process, currently gives just three charities its top ranking. The Against Malaria Foundation, a British charity that provides long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to people in developing countries, has held the No. 1 spot since 2011.
Against Malaria, founded in 2004, asks donors how they learned about the organization.
Rob Mather, the group’s founder and CEO, says roughly two-thirds of the $8-million that the charity received in its latest fiscal year, which ended in June, came from people influenced by the effective-altruism movement. GiveWell alone is credited with influencing 30 percent of the donations.
Boris Yakubchik, a 28-year-old who teaches middle-school math in Paterson, N.J., is one of Against Malaria’s steadiest supporters.
In 2010, while at Rutgers University, he joined the campus chapter of Giving What We Can, an international group whose members pledge to give at least 10 percent of their income to organizations that fight extreme poverty. Last year, Mr. Yakubchik increased his giving to 50 percent of his income. In 2012, Mr. Yakubchik earned about $46,000 from his teaching job and gave more than $20,000 to Against Malaria.
GiveWell and other effective-altruism groups encourage such concentrated giving. GiveWell urges donors to consider giving 70 percent of their philanthropic dollars to Against Malaria and the remainder to its two other top-rated charities: Give Directly, which provides direct cash transfers to poor people in Kenya, and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, which treats children in Africa for parasite infections.
“There’s an argument going around in this circle that once you find a charity that’s the best, it makes sense to give all your money there,” Mr. Yakubchik says. “Diversifying, while it makes sense for investments, isn’t the best strategy for charity.”
Open About Failure
While many effective altruists essentially outsource charity evaluation to GiveWell, the group acknowledges that it won’t always get things right. GiveWell has changed its top-ranked charities several times in its six-year existence. It no longer recommends some groups, like Population Services International, that once held the top spot.
“I think it’s fair of people to be skeptical that we’ve found the best charities,” Mr. Karnofsky says. “We’re very skeptical that we’ve found the best charities. We’re doing the best we can.”
In some ways, the effective altruists are pushing the boundaries of broader trends already under way in philanthropy.
For the past two decades, foundations, donors and others have put progressively more emphasis on distinguishing high-performing charities from the bad or merely average.
The new ratings system at Charity Navigator, which seeks to help donors learn what charities do to evaluate their work (the prior approach relied heavily on financial measures), is only the latest example of this trend.
What’s different about effective altruists, says Luke Muehlhauser, head of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, is that they’re more willing to discuss the failures of even the best charities in a public forum—something that many private foundations that say they practice “strategic philanthropy” remain loathe to do.
“Effective altruism is more of a public movement,” Mr. Muehlhauser says. “It’s about making information accessible to everyone, as opposed to a foundation just doing research for its own purposes and then not telling anyone else about it.”
source
Some Donors Rely on Charity-Evaluation Group for Decisions
about GIVE WELL
By Ben Gose
People who push the idea of effective altruism—using data and reason rather than passion alone to determine the most effective way to give— don’t just want to do some good: They want to achieve the most that they possibly can with their time and money.
Identifying the world’s best charities is the tricky part for effective altruists and for everyone else. Many people in the effective-altruism movement rely on the recommendations of GiveWell, a nonprofit founded in 2007, well before the term “effective altruism” caught on. GiveWell, started by two former hedge-fund analysts, seeks to identify the charities that stand above the rest and offer the best giving opportunities.
“The founding idea of GiveWell was basically effective altruism,” says Holden Karnofsky, a co-founder of the group. “The goal from day one was doing as much good as possible with the dollars that we had.”
GiveWell, known for tough scrutiny of charities and a transparent evaluation process, currently gives just three charities its top ranking. The Against Malaria Foundation, a British charity that provides long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to people in developing countries, has held the No. 1 spot since 2011.
Against Malaria, founded in 2004, asks donors how they learned about the organization.
Rob Mather, the group’s founder and CEO, says roughly two-thirds of the $8-million that the charity received in its latest fiscal year, which ended in June, came from people influenced by the effective-altruism movement. GiveWell alone is credited with influencing 30 percent of the donations.
Boris Yakubchik, a 28-year-old who teaches middle-school math in Paterson, N.J., is one of Against Malaria’s steadiest supporters.
In 2010, while at Rutgers University, he joined the campus chapter of Giving What We Can, an international group whose members pledge to give at least 10 percent of their income to organizations that fight extreme poverty. Last year, Mr. Yakubchik increased his giving to 50 percent of his income. In 2012, Mr. Yakubchik earned about $46,000 from his teaching job and gave more than $20,000 to Against Malaria.
GiveWell and other effective-altruism groups encourage such concentrated giving. GiveWell urges donors to consider giving 70 percent of their philanthropic dollars to Against Malaria and the remainder to its two other top-rated charities: Give Directly, which provides direct cash transfers to poor people in Kenya, and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, which treats children in Africa for parasite infections.
“There’s an argument going around in this circle that once you find a charity that’s the best, it makes sense to give all your money there,” Mr. Yakubchik says. “Diversifying, while it makes sense for investments, isn’t the best strategy for charity.”
Open About Failure
While many effective altruists essentially outsource charity evaluation to GiveWell, the group acknowledges that it won’t always get things right. GiveWell has changed its top-ranked charities several times in its six-year existence. It no longer recommends some groups, like Population Services International, that once held the top spot.
“I think it’s fair of people to be skeptical that we’ve found the best charities,” Mr. Karnofsky says. “We’re very skeptical that we’ve found the best charities. We’re doing the best we can.”
In some ways, the effective altruists are pushing the boundaries of broader trends already under way in philanthropy.
For the past two decades, foundations, donors and others have put progressively more emphasis on distinguishing high-performing charities from the bad or merely average.
The new ratings system at Charity Navigator, which seeks to help donors learn what charities do to evaluate their work (the prior approach relied heavily on financial measures), is only the latest example of this trend.
What’s different about effective altruists, says Luke Muehlhauser, head of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, is that they’re more willing to discuss the failures of even the best charities in a public forum—something that many private foundations that say they practice “strategic philanthropy” remain loathe to do.
“Effective altruism is more of a public movement,” Mr. Muehlhauser says. “It’s about making information accessible to everyone, as opposed to a foundation just doing research for its own purposes and then not telling anyone else about it.”
source
