4 ms·

http://givewell.net/ http://givewell.net/ investigates charities to make sure they achieve demonstrable results, they have a list of those that do. There are a

by aaronsw 17y ago

http://givewell.net/ http://givewell.net/ investigates charities to make sure they achieve demonstrable results, they have a list of those that do. There are also meta-charities like GiveWell and the MIT Poverty Action Lab that investigate other charitable attempts.

blasdel 17y ago
Fuck that noise -- if you'd have even bothered to google their name, you'd have found that Givewell are total scumbags: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/15547/GiveWell-or-Give-em-Hell http://metatalk.metafilter.com/15547/GiveWell-or-Give-em-Hel... Summaries: http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/Givewell http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/Givewell They got caught out because they were blatantly astroturfing for themselves and slagging 'competing' charities all over the web. Then it turns out that even by their own generous accounting, more than half of their funds goes directly to their own overhead. On top of that, their 'research' is at best based on getting charities to rigorously assess themselves. Their rubberstamp board publicly (in the NYT) pretended to fire one of the founders, but less than a year later he was quietly back at his old position.
- netsp 17y ago
  You would expect that any organisation doing this kind of work would attract criticism. There is a taboo against harming a charities ability to raise funds. Do you know of any organisation doing similar but better?
  - req2 17y ago
    There's http://www.charitynavigator.org/ http://www.charitynavigator.org/, and the arguments against: http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/11/charity-navigator%E2%80%99s-vital-mission-hides-flawed-rankings http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/11/charity-navigator%E2...
- aaronsw 17y ago
  I'm not sure how any of this discredits their recommendations. E.g. it seems to me the Stop TB Foundation and Partners In Health probably still achieve measurable results. I certainly wouldn't recommend donating to GiveWell, though. The MIT Poverty Action Lab seems like a much better use of the money.

by aaronsw 17y ago

blasdel 17y ago

Fuck that noise -- if you'd have even bothered to google their name, you'd have found that Givewell are total scumbags: http://metatalk.metafilter.com/15547/GiveWell-or-Give-em-Hell http://metatalk.metafilter.com/15547/GiveWell-or-Give-em-Hel... Summaries: http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/Givewell http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/Givewell They got caught out because they were blatantly astroturfing for themselves and slagging 'competing' charities all over the web. Then it turns out that even by their own generous accounting, more than half of their funds goes directly to their own overhead. On top of that, their 'research' is at best based on getting charities to rigorously assess themselves. Their rubberstamp board publicly (in the NYT) pretended to fire one of the founders, but less than a year later he was quietly back at his old position.

netsp 17y ago
You would expect that any organisation doing this kind of work would attract criticism. There is a taboo against harming a charities ability to raise funds. Do you know of any organisation doing similar but better?
- req2 17y ago
  There's http://www.charitynavigator.org/ http://www.charitynavigator.org/, and the arguments against: http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/11/charity-navigator%E2%80%99s-vital-mission-hides-flawed-rankings http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/11/charity-navigator%E2...
aaronsw 17y ago
I'm not sure how any of this discredits their recommendations. E.g. it seems to me the Stop TB Foundation and Partners In Health probably still achieve measurable results. I certainly wouldn't recommend donating to GiveWell, though. The MIT Poverty Action Lab seems like a much better use of the money.