Tag: givewell
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Podcast Episode 21: Testing Our Assumptions through Local Insights
GiveWell has built its reputation on rigorous research—analyzing randomized controlled trials, building cost-effectiveness models, and reviewing monitoring data to identify cost‑effective ways to save and improve lives. In an effort to supplement this desk research and make better decisions, we’ve been working to gather more information directly from the people who live and work in…
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Podcast Episode 20: Taking Lessons from a Year of Aid Cuts into 2026
Global health programs faced major disruptions to their funding in 2025. Back in March, we published our first podcast episode to share a timely snapshot of the immediate impacts caused by the foreign aid freeze and GiveWell’s initial response strategy. It was unclear whether and when funding would resume, and what the medium and long-term…
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December 2025 Updates
Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below! If you’d like to receive the complete…
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Coefficient Giving Commits $175 Million to GiveWell Opportunities
We are excited to share that Coefficient Giving, formerly Open Philanthropy, has decided to renew and increase their funding for GiveWell, committing to set aside $175 million in 2026 for opportunities we recommend. This is great news for the people our grants help, and it comes at a critical moment. Following 2025’s aid cuts, we…
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Staff Members’ Personal Donations for Giving Season 2025
For this post, a number of GiveWell staff members volunteered to share the thinking behind their personal donations for the year. We’ve published similar posts in previous years.1See our staff giving posts from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_16165_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_16165_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0,…
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Growing Needs, Shrinking Aid: Answering More of Your Questions
On December 4, 2025, we held a panel discussion titled “Growing Needs, Shrinking Aid: Cost-Effective Action in a Year of Funding Cuts.” The discussion, which was moderated by GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld, addressed the effects of recent cuts, how GiveWell is responding, and what we’re learning along the way—including our predictions and uncertainties…
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Podcast Episode 18: Behind the Planet Money ALIMA Grant Story
This episode follows up on the November 26, 2025 episode of Planet Money, “Saving lives with fewer dollars,” which covered GiveWell’s evaluation of a grant to the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) to maintain primary healthcare, hospital services, and malnutrition treatment in two subdistricts of North Cameroon following unexpected aid cuts earlier this year.…
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November 2025 Updates
Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below! If you’d like to receive the complete…
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Help Us Respond to an Uncertain Future for Global Health
It has been a tumultuous year for global health. In early 2025, the US government cut billions of dollars in foreign aid, affecting millions of people around the world and creating substantial uncertainty that continues to ripple through health and development programs around the world. Drawing on almost two decades of cost-effectiveness research and analysis,…
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Podcast Episode 17: Bridging an Uncertain Time for a Lifesaving Program
Despite significant progress over the past several decades, malaria remains a leading cause of death globally for children under five. This year’s cuts to foreign aid funding disrupted highly effective programs to prevent malaria, such as seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC). SMC provides antimalarial medication to children under the age of five during the rainy season…
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October 2025 Updates
Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below! If you’d like to receive the complete…
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Beyond the Spreadsheets: Malawi Site Visit Podcast Series
Our Beyond the Spreadsheets podcast mini-series lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a GiveWell site visit through real-time reflections and clips of conversations. At GiveWell, the vast majority of our work is desk-based…
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Safe Water Projects: Saving Lives and Improving Our Grantmaking
Clean water. Most of us take it for granted. We can turn on the tap and have safe water to drink whenever we want, without having to give it a second thought. That’s not the case for more than a billion people around the world who lack access to uncontaminated drinking water. This is a…
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September 2025 Updates
Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below! If you’d like to receive the complete…
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GiveWell Expands Work on Livelihoods Programs
As you may have heard on a recent episode of our podcast, we’re launching an experiment: focusing more attention on programs that increase the economic well-being of people in extreme poverty. We are in the process of completing a search for a new program officer to lead an expanded livelihoods research team, and we plan…
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Podcast Episode 11: A Frontline View of Foreign Aid Cuts with CHAI’s CEO
Foreign aid funding cuts are reshaping the global health landscape, creating urgent funding gaps and forcing difficult prioritization decisions across health systems worldwide. To understand the real-world effects, it’s essential to hear from the organizations working on the front lines with government partners to navigate the funding crisis. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is…
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August 2025 Updates
Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below! If you’d like to receive the complete…
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Podcast Episode 10: The Fragile Foundations of Global Health Data
GiveWell’s ability to find and fund highly cost-effective health programs relies on a foundation of credible data. A key source of that data, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), recently had its primary funding from USAID discontinued. This creates the potential of a significant challenge for GiveWell’s research—and for evidence-based grantmaking across the global health…
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GiveWell’s 2024 Metrics and Impact
Thanks to the generosity of more than 30,000 donors, GiveWell raised $415 million and directed $397 million to cost-effective programs in metrics year 2024 (February 2024 to January 2025).1 GiveWell’s metrics year runs from February 1 through January 31. Our metrics report is typically published at least six months after the close of the metrics…
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Podcast Episode 9: Advancing GiveWell’s Work on Family Planning
As GiveWell’s research team grows, that increased capacity and expertise allows us to evaluate a wider range of programs to find the most cost-effective opportunities to help people. Over the past year and a half, we’ve been investigating a new research area: family planning services that help people decide whether and when to have children.…