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I wish they would consider GiveWell, which has applied. GW is in the business of evaluating the effectiveness of charitable giving to maximize impact. If you h

I wish they would consider GiveWell, which has applied. GW is in the business of evaluating the effectiveness of charitable giving to maximize impact. If you have a bunch of money to give away, it's probably tempting to think you can outperform the impact of professionals, just as if you suddenly have a bunch of money to invest, you might assume at first you can outperform professional investors. Sadly the feedback isn't quite as pronounced in charitable giving. It can feel rewarding giving to an organization that makes a smaller impact than its rivals, so long as it has great promotional materials and you don't ask too many questions.

DennisP 9y ago
One of their biggest donations was $5 million to GiveDirectly, which is one of GiveWell's top-rated charities. https://pineapplefund.org/ https://pineapplefund.org/ https://www.givewell.org/charities/give-directly https://www.givewell.org/charities/give-directly
gowld 9y ago
GiveWell is great, but by their own admission they can't accept all charitable dollars -- there is only a limited amount of capacity to receive funds effectively, and their growing popularity has drastically increased funding for the very few charities they approve. They will need to do more work to identify charities beyond their top 3. Also, GiveWell's metrics only value human life, not animal life, so don't apply to Ocean fund.
math_and_stuff 9y ago
One doesn't need to do better, just less than 21% worse: http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Clear_Fund_Form_990_2016_Redacted.pdf http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Clear_Fund_Form_99...
- myroon5 9y ago
  any further explanation? Not sure what we should be looking for in these 40+ pages
  - math_and_stuff 9y ago
    The first page (no snark intended) shows that about 21% of the income goes to salaries, and 79% passes to charities. Regardless of what one's conclusions are on whether this is an acceptable overhead, it is an important consideration in how "efficient" it is to donate through GW rather than directly to your favorite charity.
    - myroon5 9y ago
      They also publicly list their chosen most effective charities, so you can always donate to those directly instead of through GiveWell. I'd imagine this is common, and a lot of additional external donations result from their research. They try to estimate their overall impact here: https://www.givewell.org/about/impact https://www.givewell.org/about/impact. Also, feel free to disagree, but you might find their argument that expense ratios should not be the most important charity metric interesting: https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a-charity/ https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a...
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Exactly. It's literally the first time I hear of giving to GW. I always thought everyone uses them as a ranking of what charities to give directly to.
- gowld 9y ago
  21% overhead doesn't say how effective their program spend is.

DennisP 9y ago

One of their biggest donations was $5 million to GiveDirectly, which is one of GiveWell's top-rated charities. https://pineapplefund.org/ https://pineapplefund.org/ https://www.givewell.org/charities/give-directly https://www.givewell.org/charities/give-directly

gowld 9y ago

GiveWell is great, but by their own admission they can't accept all charitable dollars -- there is only a limited amount of capacity to receive funds effectively, and their growing popularity has drastically increased funding for the very few charities they approve. They will need to do more work to identify charities beyond their top 3. Also, GiveWell's metrics only value human life, not animal life, so don't apply to Ocean fund.

math_and_stuff 9y ago

One doesn't need to do better, just less than 21% worse: http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Clear_Fund_Form_990_2016_Redacted.pdf http://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Clear_Fund_Form_99...

myroon5 9y ago
any further explanation? Not sure what we should be looking for in these 40+ pages
- math_and_stuff 9y ago
  The first page (no snark intended) shows that about 21% of the income goes to salaries, and 79% passes to charities. Regardless of what one's conclusions are on whether this is an acceptable overhead, it is an important consideration in how "efficient" it is to donate through GW rather than directly to your favorite charity.
  - myroon5 9y ago
    They also publicly list their chosen most effective charities, so you can always donate to those directly instead of through GiveWell. I'd imagine this is common, and a lot of additional external donations result from their research. They try to estimate their overall impact here: https://www.givewell.org/about/impact https://www.givewell.org/about/impact. Also, feel free to disagree, but you might find their argument that expense ratios should not be the most important charity metric interesting: https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a-charity/ https://blog.givewell.org/2009/12/01/the-worst-way-to-pick-a...
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Exactly. It's literally the first time I hear of giving to GW. I always thought everyone uses them as a ranking of what charities to give directly to.
gowld 9y ago
21% overhead doesn't say how effective their program spend is.