GiveWell recently recommended a grant of up to $750,000 to Malengo, an educational migration program. Malengo supports students from low-income countries in moving to high-income countries for university. The goal is to enable them to earn a higher income over time, benefiting both the students and their families.
GiveWell is co-funding the grant with Open Philanthropy, which is contributing an equal amount, for a total of up to $1.5 million over three years. We expect the GiveWell portion of the grant to be funded in part by individual donors and in part by the All Grants Fund.
One of our Program Officers, Erin Crossett, recommended this grant based on the belief that it could be a highly cost-effective opportunity. As a small discretionary grant, it received less scrutiny than our standard grants.
This grant provides an interesting learning opportunity for us, and it may support Malengo through a particularly challenging financial period.
The rest of this post shares why we think Malengo’s program could be cost-effective, how filling this specific funding gap might enable Malengo’s program to become more financially sustainable, and what we hope to learn next. You can read more about the full rationale for this grant on our grant page.
A small discretionary grant
Our senior grantmakers can collectively recommend a total of up to $10 million in “small discretionary grants” each year (more details here). We believe that we can increase our expected impact by occasionally funding small, promising opportunities like this one without investing a lot of time in evaluating them.
We’re writing a post about this grant because we think it’s interesting and different from our usual recommendations. But almost by definition, it’s not representative of most of our grantmaking work. Most of our funding goes to programs we’ve researched more deeply in our key focus areas of malaria, vaccines, nutrition, and water quality. However, we’re always excited to look into new areas that could be promising, including programs like Malengo’s.
Malengo’s migration program: A promising way to increase incomes
The income someone can expect to earn varies widely based on where they live. Around the world, millions of people move from lower-wage to higher-wage areas, either within their home countries or outside them, in hopes of making a better living for themselves and their families.
Many students from lower-income countries would like to
Tag Archives: philantrhopy
March 2024 open thread
Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
You can view previous open threads here.
The post March 2024 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.
What we fund, #1: We fund many opportunities outside our top charities
This post is the fourth in a multi-part series, covering how GiveWell works and what we fund. We’ll add links to the later posts here as they’re published. Through these posts, we hope to give a better understanding of what our research looks like and how we make decisions.
How we work, #1: Cost-effectiveness is generally the most important factor in our recommendations
How we work, #2: We look at specific opportunities, not just general interventions
How we work, #3: Our analyses involve judgment calls
GiveWell aims to find and fund programs that have the greatest impact on global well-being. We’re open to funding whichever global health and development opportunities seem most cost-effective. So while our top charities list is still what we’re best known for, it’s only part of our impact; we also dedicate substantial funding and research effort to opportunities beyond top charities.
In 2022, 71% of the funds we directed supported our four current top charities, and 29% were directed to other programs.1This is based on the funding we directly recommended or granted to other organizations from February 1, 2022, to January 31, 2023, as well as funding that we believe was influenced primarily by our research and recommendations. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14734_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14734_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); However, most of our research capacity goes toward programs other than our top charities. This is because (a) most programs we direct funding to aren’t top charities (we have four top charities but directed funding to about 40 other grantees in 2022),2See pages 15 and 16 of our 2022 metrics report.
jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14734_1_2’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14734_1_2’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); and (b) it requires more effort to investigate a program we know less deeply.
In this post we’ll share:
The overall scope of our grantmaking
Why we dedicate funding and research capacity to programs other than our top charities
The types of opportunities we support
You can support the full range of our grantmaking via the All Grants Fund.
The scope of our work
Our research is focused on global health and development programs. We believe this is an area in which donations can be especially cost-effective.
Much of our funding
February 2024 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 newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.
Spotlight on a GiveWell Grantee
This month, we are shining a spotlight on Suvita, an organization that aims to increase childhood vaccination rates in India. In April 2023, we made a $3.3 million grant to support its work in promoting vaccinations through SMS text message reminders and Immunization Ambassadors who share information about vaccines in local communities. The grant will support these programs in two Indian states, Bihar and Maharashtra. We think these low-cost activities could lead to small but meaningful increases in vaccination rates, which in turn will mean fewer children dying of vaccine-preventable diseases. You can read more about this grant here.
This grant to Suvita was funded by GiveWell’s All Grants Fund and individual donor funding. The All Grants Fund allows donors to contribute to the most impactful grant opportunities we’ve identified, regardless of program or location. It’s a great option for donors who have a high level of trust in GiveWell and are open to programs that might be riskier or less certain than our top charities.
Research Updates
We’ve recently published a number of new research pages—below are a few highlights. If you’d like to sign up for email updates whenever we publish new research materials, you can do so here.
Co-delivering vitamin A supplementation and seasonal malaria chemoprevention in Nigeria
In October 2023, GiveWell recommended a $1.4 million grant to Malaria Consortium to deliver vitamin A supplementation (VAS) alongside seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) campaigns in two states in Nigeria. Malaria Consortium already delivers seasonal malaria chemoprevention via door-to-door campaigns in these states, and this grant will fund the costs of adding VAS as part of these campaigns. We expect that Malaria Consortium will be able to deliver VAS at a low cost by leveraging its existing SMC platform, thus increasing the number of children receiving VAS and, in turn, averting a higher number of child deaths.
Iron and folic acid supplementation in India
In August 2022, GiveWell
Givewell Blog | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGivewellBlogJanuary 2024 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 newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.
Recent GiveWell events
We ended 2023 with two in-person events, one in New York and one in San Francisco.
In San Francisco, GiveWell’s CEO Elie Hassenfeld was joined by Neil Buddy Shah, CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), to discuss the work of both organizations and their partnership via the CHAI Incubator. You can find the audio recording and transcript of this event here.
In New York, Elie spoke with journalist Matthew Yglesias, co-founder of Vox and creator of Slow Boring, about GiveWell’s top charities and latest research. You can check out the video recording and transcript of this event here.
Attending events is a great way to learn more about GiveWell! You can sign up here to be notified of in-person and virtual events, and you can catch up on our previous events here.
GiveWell in the Media
Teryn Mattox, Director of Research at GiveWell, wrote a guest essay for Emily Oster’s Substack, ParentData, on the effectiveness of kangaroo mother care (KMC). KMC is intended to be a low-cost alternative to conventional neonatal intensive care for low-birth-weight infants; it primarily involves skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby. In low- and middle-income countries, KMC can save babies’ lives, but implementation can be challenging. GiveWell’s research on and grantmaking to maternal and newborn health programs includes a grant to r.i.c.e., which operates a KMC program in India.
Research Updates
We’ve recently published a number of new research pages—below are a few highlights. If you’d like to sign up for email updates whenever we publish new research materials, you can do so here.
Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI)
In September 2023, GiveWell recommended a $6.6 million grant to CHAI for a two-year diarrhea treatment program in Bauchi, Nigeria. This grant supports the distribution of oral rehydration solution (ORS) and zinc to households with children under the age of five. Diarrhea is a common cause of childhood mortality in Nigeria, and we roughly estimate that this
Givewell Blog | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGivewellBlogDecember 2023 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 newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.
The year 2023 has been one of growth at GiveWell. Our team has expanded, giving us the ability to take on more internal projects, reach out to more supporters, and conduct research into new interventions and funding areas. Since our metrics year started on February 1, we have directed over $100 million to funding opportunities in more than 10 countries, with more grantmaking expected in the coming months—we expect the programs these grants support will save tens of thousands of lives. We are proud of the impact that our supporters have made with their giving in 2023, and look forward to finding new opportunities and directing more funding in 2024.
Recent panel discussion on maternal health
GiveWell recently hosted a virtual event focusing on maternal and reproductive health, a new and growing area of GiveWell’s grantmaking. Economist and author Emily Oster moderated a panel with Svetha Janumpalli, Founder and CEO of New Incentives, and Erin Crossett, a Program Officer at GiveWell. During the hour, they discussed GiveWell’s research and grants to maternal and newborn health, including a recent grant to r.i.c.e. to operate a program for low-birthweight babies focused on kangaroo mother care. Elie Hassenfeld, GiveWell’s CEO and Co-Founder, also joined to answer audience questions. If you missed this engaging conversation, you can catch up on the recording here.
We’re continuing to investigate a number of programs in this area and would be excited to direct funding to them, if they meet our cost-effectiveness bar.
GiveWell in the media
The How To Money podcast recently interviewed Elie to discuss effective altruism, GiveWell’s founding, and making the greatest impact with your giving.
Highlights from our grantees
Nutrition International
Nutrition International shared a photo essay on their vitamin A supplementation (VAS) work in hard-to-reach areas in Nigeria. This story follows health workers during a maternal, newborn, and child health week in Kwanda town, as they deliver VAS to children under five.
Although GiveWell did not fund the
GiveWell from A to Z
To celebrate the end of 2023, we’re highlighting a few key things to know about GiveWell—from A to Z. These aren’t necessarily the 26 most important parts of our work (e.g., we could include only “transparency” or “top charities” for T) but they do fit the alphabet, and we’ve linked to other pages where you can learn more.
All Grants Fund. Our recommendation for donors who have a high level of trust in GiveWell and are open to programs that might be riskier than our top charities.
Bar. We set a cost-effectiveness bar, or threshold, such that we expect to be able to fully fund all the opportunities above that level of cost-effectiveness. This bar isn’t a hard limit; we consider qualitative factors in our recommendations, as discussed here. This post also discusses our bar in more detail.
Cost-effectiveness. The core question we try to answer in our research is: How much good can you do by giving money to a certain program? This blog post describes how we approach cost-effectiveness estimates and use them in our work.
Donors. Unlike a foundation, we don’t hold an endowment. Our impact comes from donors choosing to use our recommendations.
Effective giving organizations. Organizations like Effektiv Spenden fundraise for programs we recommend and provide tax-deductible donation options in a variety of countries. We’re grateful to these national effective giving organizations and groups like Giving What We Can that recommend our work.
Footnotes.1Our research materials wouldn’t be complete without footnotes; they support our commitment to transparency. Citing our sources and explaining our claims makes it possible for people to check our work for themselves and draw their own conclusions. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14668_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14668_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });
Generalizability. How well evidence generalizes to different settings, including variations in program implementation and the contexts where a program is delivered. Also called “external validity.”
Health workers and community distributors. The people who deliver many of the programs we support; includes both professional health workers and distributors who receive stipends to deliver programs in their local communities. For example, community distributors go from household to household to provide seasonal malaria chemoprevention to millions of children.
Incubating new programs. We partner with the Evidence Action Accelerator and Clinton Health Access
GiveWell’s 2022 metrics report
In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available and analyzed, GiveWell raised the largest amount of money in our history, over $600 million. We thank our donors for continuing to trust us to find and recommend highly cost-effective giving opportunities. The following table summarizes our funds raised and our funds directed to programs in metrics year 2021 and 2022.1GiveWell’s metrics year runs from February 1 through January 31 of the following year; the 2022 metrics year ran from February 1, 2022, to January 31, 2023. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14651_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14651_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });
2021
2022
Y/Y Growth
Funds Raised
$595,489,935
$602,889,435
1%
Funds Directed2In 2022, as in 2021, we raised more funds than we directed. For more on this, see the funds directed section below. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14651_1_2’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14651_1_2’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });
$529,426,944
$439,391,294
-17%
For more information on our 2022 funds raised, funds directed, operational expenses, and donor metrics, see our impact page and our full metrics report.
A note on timing
This post covers funds raised and directed in our metrics year 2022 (spanning February 1, 2022 to January 31, 2023). Our metrics report is typically published at least six months after the close of the metrics year because we need to collect data on donations we influence from third parties and then cross-check that data to ensure we aren’t double-counting any funds. This year we were additionally delayed by competing internal priorities.
Funds raised
In 2022, we raised slightly more funding than during 2021, and substantially more than prior years.3Note that the chart refers to our historical funds raised. The figures for 2020 and earlier refer to our “money moved,” which tracked the funding that was both raised and directed in a given year. We are now reporting on funds raised and funds directed separately, which we believe is simpler and clearer. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14651_1_3’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14651_1_3’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], });
We are excited by a continuing trend of donors trusting GiveWell to allocate their donation (e.g., by giving to one of our Giving Funds) instead of choosing to restrict their donation
Givewell Blog | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGivewellBlogStaff members’ personal donations for giving season 2023
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 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14589_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14589_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); Staff are listed alphabetically by first name.
You can click the below links to jump to a staff member’s entry: Alex Singal, Audrey Cooper, Carley Moor, Charlotte Fisken, Dilhan Perera, Elie Hassenfeld, Isabel Arjmand, Kameron Smith, Kaymin Martin-Burnett, Lauren Imholte, Maggie Lloydhauser, Olivia Larsen, Paige Henchen, Steph Stojanovic, Teryn Mattox, Vicky Yu, Victoria N Krauss.
Alex Singal (Philanthropy Associate)
I am still working out the exact amounts and timing of my giving this year (I may need to wait until January to make the actual donations for tax reasons), but I am planning to direct the majority of my giving (60-80%) to GiveWell’s Top Charities Fund.
Even though GiveWell’s top giving recommendation for donors with a high degree of trust in GiveWell and willingness to take on more risk is our All Grants Fund, my personal preference (for now) is to maximize near-term impact. I trust GiveWell’s incredible team of researchers that the long-run expected value of the All Grants Fund is higher than that of the Top Charities Fund, but I take comfort in knowing that my donation is guaranteed to be used by one or more of our excellent top charities to provide life-saving health interventions in the immediate future.
That said, I will also be giving a smaller amount to the All Grants Fund, which covers the full range of our grantmaking, as there are many amazing programs outside of our top charities that I want to support.
The remainder of my giving will go to GiveDirectly. While I am confident the programs GiveWell supports are ultimately more impactful (and likely significantly so) than unconditional cash transfers, I have immense respect for GiveDirectly and the simplicity of its mission to reduce suffering by sending money directly to those living in extreme poverty, and I want to support that effort.
Audrey Cooper (Philanthropy Advisor)
My husband and I give 10% of our income each year—we chose this number
December 2023 open thread
Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
You can view previous open threads here.
The post December 2023 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.
How we work, #3: Our analyses involve judgment calls
This post is the third in a multi-part series, covering how GiveWell works and what we fund. Through these posts, we hope to give a better understanding of our research and decision-making.
How we work, #1: Cost-effectiveness is generally the most important factor in our recommendations
How we work, #2: We look at specific opportunities, not just general interventions
Our goal is to recommend funding to the programs we believe have the greatest impact per dollar donated. There’s no simple algorithm for this question. Answering it necessarily involves making judgment calls. Our first post in this series discussed the importance of cost-effectiveness analyses and the many factors we consider; in this post, we’ll share:
How we make subjective choices in the face of imperfect information
Some examples of judgment calls that illustrate our approach:
Combining data and intuition: Estimating the effect of water chlorination on mortality
Valuing disparate outcomes: Comparing clubfoot treatment to life-saving programs
Anticipating the likely decisions of other actors: Predicting the impact of technical assistance for syphilis screening and treatment
Making decisions with imperfect evidence
Our work relies heavily on evidence, but the available evidence never answers a question with certainty.
Academic literature and its limitations
We don’t take the results of any given study at face value.[1] Instead, we often make adjustments along the way to come to a final estimate. As part of that process, we might consider:
The methodological limitations of the available studies
The likelihood of publication bias or spurious results
Whether the study results are likely to represent the impact of the specific program we’re considering funding, which requires looking at potential differences in contexts and in the programs being implemented
How plausible the results seem when considering other relevant information, including whether there’s a known mechanism by which a program might have a certain effect
The opinions of expert advisors
Other factors not listed here
Some questions can’t easily be addressed by studies but are still important for assessing the impact of a program. Those include topics like:
Will another funder support this program if we don’t?
Will this program be successfully transitioned to the government?
How likely is it that new research will provide information that changes our minds two or three years from now?
How bad is the experience of having disease A compared to the experience of having disease B?
Considering multiple perspectives
Some donors and other experts might reasonably disagree with our
GiveWell’s 2023 recommendations to donors
We’re excited about the impact donors can have by supporting our All Grants Fund and our Top Charities Fund. For donors who want to support the programs we’re most confident in, we recommend the Top Charities Fund, which is allocated among our four top charities. For donors with a higher degree of trust in GiveWell and willingness to take on more risk, our top recommendation is the All Grants Fund, which goes to a wider range of opportunities and may have higher impact per dollar. Read more about the options for giving below. We estimate that donations to the programs we recommend can save a life for roughly $5,000 on average,[1] or have similarly strong impact by increasing incomes or preventing suffering.
Why your support matters
We expect to find more outstanding giving opportunities than we can fully fund unless our community of supporters substantially increases its giving. Figures like $5,000 per life saved are rough estimates; while we spend thousands of hours on our cost-effectiveness analyses, they’re still inherently uncertain. But the bottom line is that we think donors have the opportunity to do a huge amount of good by supporting the programs we recommend.
For a concrete sense of what a donation can do, let’s focus briefly on seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC), which involves distributing preventive medication to young children. We’ve directed funding to Malaria Consortium to implement SMC in several countries, including Burkina Faso.[2]
In Burkina Faso, community health promoters go from household to household across the country, every month during the rainy season (when malaria is most common). They give medicine to each child under the age of five, which involves mixing a medicated tablet into water and then spoon-feeding the medicine to infants and having young children drink it from a cup. They also give caregivers instructions to give additional preventive medicine over the next two days.
It costs roughly $6 to reach a child with a full season’s worth of SMC (though this figure doesn’t account for fungibility, which pushes our estimate of overall cost-effectiveness downward).[3] If a child receives a full course of SMC, we estimate that they’re about five times less likely to get malaria during the rainy season (which is when roughly 70% of cases occur).
Community distributor providing SMC medication to a child sitting on mother’s
November 2023 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 newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.
Research updates
We’ve recently published a number of new research pages—below are a few highlights. If you’d like to sign up for email updates whenever we publish new research materials, you can do so here.
Perennial malaria chemoprevention in Ghana
In February 2023, GiveWell recommended a $1.6 million grant to PATH to coordinate a randomized controlled trial measuring the effectiveness of malaria interventions for infants and young children living in areas with perennial transmissions of malaria. The trial, which will take place in Ghana, will compare the effects of administering the RTS,S malaria vaccine and perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) together versus the effects of administering only the vaccine. These types of trials can provide evidence to governments about the most effective malaria programs for their settings.
Water chlorination in Kenya, India, and Nigeria
In January 2023, GiveWell recommended a $1.8 million grant to the Development Innovation Lab (DIL) at the University of Chicago to conduct research on water chlorination programs in Kenya and develop plans for additional research on chlorination in India and Nigeria. We think water chlorination is a cost-effective way to avert deaths and have recently made several grants to support chlorination programs. The results of this grant will improve our understanding of such programs and could potentially lead to more funding for them in the future.
Organizational support for IRD Global
In April 2023, GiveWell recommended a $5.4 million grant to IRD Global for organizational support. We believe IRD Global has the potential to be an unusually promising grantee because of its emphasis on high-quality evidence, transparency, and proven operational capacity in areas with high disease burdens. We expect this grant will strengthen the organization and increase its likelihood of implementing cost-effective programs in the future.
Updates from top charities
New Incentives
New Incentives recently announced that it has enrolled over 1 million infants in its immunization program so far in 2023, more than in all previous years combined! In this video, Magaji Soja,
How we work, #2: We look at specific opportunities, not just general interventions
This post is the second in a multi-part series, covering how GiveWell works and what we fund. The first post, on cost-effectiveness, is here. Through these posts, we hope to give a better understanding of our research and decision-making.
Looking forward, not just backward
When we consider recommending funding, we don’t just want to know whether a program has generally been cost-effective in the past—we want to know how additional funding would be used.
People sometimes think of GiveWell as recommending entire programs or organizations. This was more accurate in GiveWell’s early days, but now we tend to narrow in on specific opportunities. Rather than asking whether it is cost-effective to deliver long-lasting insecticide-treated nets in general, we ask more specific questions, such as whether it is cost-effective to fund net distributions in 2023 in the Nigerian states of Benue, Plateau, and Zamfara, given the local burden of malaria and the costs of delivering nets in those states.
Geographic factors affecting cost-effectiveness
The same program can vary widely in cost-effectiveness across locations. The burden of a disease in a particular place is often a key factor in determining overall cost-effectiveness. All else equal, it’s much more impactful to deliver vitamin A supplements in areas with high rates of vitamin A deficiency than in areas where almost everyone consumes sufficient vitamin A as part of their diet. Similarly, one of our top charities, New Incentives, has chosen to operate in northern Nigeria largely because relatively low baseline vaccination rates mean its work is especially impactful there.[1]
As another example, we estimate it costs roughly the same amount for the Against Malaria Foundation to deliver an insecticide-treated net in Chad as it does in Guinea (about $4 in both locations). But, we estimate that malaria-attributable deaths of young children in the absence of nets would be roughly 5 times higher in Guinea than in Chad (roughly 8.8 deaths per 1,000 per year versus roughly 1.7 per 1,000), which leads AMF’s program to be much more cost-effective in Guinea. Overall, we estimate that AMF’s program is around 27x cash in Guinea and around 5x cash in Chad.[2]
This map from Our World in Data gives a sense of how deaths from malaria vary worldwide.[3]
Because cost-effectiveness varies with geography, we ask questions specific to the countries or regions where a program
Givewell Blog | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGivewellBlogHow we work, #1: Cost-effectiveness is generally the most important factor in our recommendations
This post is the first in a multi-part series, covering how GiveWell works and what we fund. We’ll add links to the later posts here as they’re published. Through these posts, we hope to give a better understanding of our research and decision-making.
Why cost-effectiveness matters
The core question we try to answer in our research is: How much good can you do by giving money to a certain program?
Consider how much good your donation could do if you give to a program that costs $50,000 to save a life versus one that costs $5,000 to save a life (which is roughly what we estimate for our top charities). Giving to the latter would have 10 times more impact. While in an ideal world both programs would receive funding, we focus on identifying the most cost-effective programs so that the limited amount of funding available can make the greatest difference.
The basics
We’ve written in detail here about our approach to cost-effectiveness analysis and its limitations. Our bottom-line estimates are always uncertain, and we don’t expect them to be literally true. At the same time, they help us compare programs to each other so that we can direct funding where we believe it will have the greatest impact.
At a very high level, assessing cost-effectiveness generally involves looking at:
The cost per person reached. For example, how much does it cost to treat one child with vitamin A supplementation for one year?
The outcomes of the program. Determining these outcomes often involves examining two factors:
The overall burden of a problem. For instance, how many kids who will be reached with vitamin A supplementation would otherwise have died?[1]
The effect the program has. For example, how much does vitamin A supplementation reduce mortality rates relative to that baseline, and are there other benefits to providing vitamin A?
We use unconditional cash transfers as a benchmark for comparing opportunities, such that a program is estimated to be “12x cash” if we believe it’s 12 times more impactful per dollar than giving money directly to people living in poverty. In other words, if we estimate that a program is 12x cash, we think donating $100 to that program does as much good as donating $1,200 to a program that delivers unconditional cash transfers.
More detail
We aim to come to an all-things-considered view that
October 2023 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 newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.
We’re always excited when we can use the media to tell people about GiveWell’s work—we encourage you to check out our recent feature on the EconTalk podcast! In this episode, GiveWell’s CEO Elie Hassenfeld spoke with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts to discuss GiveWell’s history and how we strive to find the most charitable “bang for your buck.” The conversation covered how and why GiveWell was founded, our methods for determining top charities and other high-impact grant opportunities, and the dangers of relying too heavily on data.
Research updates
We’ve recently published a number of new research pages—below are a few highlights. If you’d like to sign up for email updates whenever we publish new research materials, you can do so here.
Perennial malaria chemoprevention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In November 2022, GiveWell made a $6.2 million grant to PATH to conduct a two-year implementation pilot of perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC)1Note: Intermittent preventive treatment in infants is now called perennial malaria chemoprevention. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14396_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14396_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where malaria is a leading cause of death among young children. PMC is the provision of preventive antimalarial medicine to children under the age of two at routine vaccination visits. We believe this grant to be highly cost-effective and expect PATH will reach over 180,000 infants during the pilot. We believe that this pilot, by demonstrating the possibility for successful implementation in DRC, has the potential to accelerate PMC support from other donors, which could lead to roughly 900,000 infants receiving PMC over the next decade.
Deworming programs in Burundi and Mauritania
In June 2023, GiveWell made a $1.5 million exit grant to Unlimit Health, formerly the SCI Foundation, for its deworming programs in Burundi and Mauritania. This grant extended funding for these programs for two years (through
Givewell Blog | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGivewellBlogOpen Philanthropy’s 2023-2025 funding of $300 million total for GiveWell’s recommendations
This year, Open Philanthropy plans to give $300 million for GiveWell to spend over the next three years. We’re grateful for what this support will enable us to do.
Annualized, this is similar to what Open Philanthropy gave in 2020 and roughly in line with what we projected earlier this year. It’s less than Open Philanthropy gave in 2021 and 2022, and we’ll need strong growth in donations in order to make up the difference.1This refers to funds raised for the programs we recommend. As an organization, we’re in a very stable position financially. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14366_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14366_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); We expect to identify more great funding opportunities than we’ll be able to fund, and your support can fill those cost-effective gaps, helping to save and improve people’s lives.
Below, we share:
How this update affects GiveWell’s work (more)
More background on Open Philanthropy and GiveWell’s relationship (more)
Why Open Philanthropy’s spending is changing (more)
The impact donors can have by supporting GiveWell’s recommendations (more)
How Open Philanthropy’s giving affects GiveWell’s work
Open Philanthropy’s funding of $300 million over three years is roughly in line with what we were expecting in April 2023 and is a decrease from what we expected a couple years ago.2It’s between the 25th and 50th percentile outcomes we anticipated in our post, which was informed by ongoing conversations with Open Philanthropy about its likely giving. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14366_1_2’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14366_1_2’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); In 2021, we scaled up our efforts to find more funding opportunities in expectation of potentially reaching $1 billion in funds raised by 2025. While we no longer project raising $1 billion in 2025, our research team has risen to the challenge and has found more cost-effective funding opportunities than we expect we’ll be able to fund.
Open Philanthropy isn’t yet sure what level of funding it might provide for GiveWell’s recommendations after 2025, if it renews its support. Our outreach team is ramping up its fundraising efforts so that we can help as many people as possible, and we expect to support hundreds of millions of dollars worth of outstanding programs regardless of Open Philanthropy’s funding
September 2023 updates
Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We’ve decided to start publishing selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who might visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!
If you’d like to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.
Research updates
We’ve recently published a number of new research pages—below are a few highlights. If you’d like to sign up for email updates whenever we publish new research materials, you can do so here.
Kangaroo mother care for low-birthweight babies in India
In November 2022, GiveWell made a five-year, $2.4 million grant to r.i.c.e.’s program in India for low-birthweight babies focused on kangaroo mother care (KMC), which involves skin-to-skin contact and early initiation of breastfeeding. As we describe in our KMC intervention report, there is strong evidence that KMC reduces neonatal mortality compared to conventional neonatal intensive care.1A 2016 Cochrane meta-analysis suggests that KMC reduces neonatal mortality in low-birthweight infants by around 30% compared to conventional neonatal care, which is corroborated by reductions in morbidity and increases in early-life growth. More in our intervention report. jQuery(‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_14346_1_1’).tooltip({ tip: ‘#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_14346_1_1’, tipClass: ‘footnote_tooltip’, effect: ‘fade’, predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: ‘top right’, relative: true, offset: [10, 10], }); Recently, we spoke with r.i.c.e. for a six-month update on the progress of its program. r.i.c.e has expanded the reach of its program to all premature infants using services of the hospital where it works, regardless of birth weight. It plans to hire more nurses to keep up with expanding patient capacity. It is also making progress planning an impact evaluation and updating its program protocols.
Vitamin A Supplementation in Chad
In May 2023, we recommended a $6 million grant to Nutrition International to renew support for its vitamin A supplementation (VAS) program in Chad through 2025. VAS can prevent serious illness and death in children in areas where vitamin A deficiency is a problem.
Conditional cash transfers in northern Nigeria
In May 2023, we recommended a $12.6 million grant to New Incentives, a GiveWell top charity, to expand and extend its conditional cash transfers for vaccination programs in northern Nigeria. This grant, along with approximately $19.6 million applied from
Givewell Blog | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGivewellBlogSeptember 2023 open thread
Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.
You can view previous open threads here.
The post September 2023 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.
Why we’re funding clubfoot treatment through MiracleFeet
For many people, GiveWell is practically synonymous with our short list of top charities. But the amount of money we’ve sent to other organizations, doing other important work, has been increasing. In 2021, we made or recommended about $190 million in grants to non–top charity programs, like water treatment and malnutrition treatment, and in 2022, we set up the All Grants Fund specifically so donors could contribute to programs in this category.
Source: GiveWell, GiveWell Metrics Report — 2021 Annual Review, p. 9
We want to use this blog to give you more frequent, brief insights into these newer areas of our grantmaking before we publish our formal grant write-ups. Below we’ll discuss, in light detail, a program that’s well outside of our traditional wheelhouse, but that we think significantly improves children’s lives—treatment for clubfoot with an organization called MiracleFeet.
The grant
Clubfoot is a congenital (i.e., present from birth) abnormality that causes one or both feet to twist inward and upward. Children born with clubfoot must walk on the sides or backs of their feet, which leads to pain, severely limited mobility, and, reportedly, social stigma. If not corrected, clubfoot is a lifelong condition.[1] In January 2023, we recommended a $5.2 million grant to MiracleFeet to expand its existing clubfoot treatment program in the Philippines and launch two new programs in Chad and Côte d’Ivoire.[2]
In the countries where it works, MiracleFeet and its local NGO partners help health facilities diagnose and treat clubfoot, using a process called the Ponseti method. This generally requires placing the affected foot in a series of casts, performing a minor surgical procedure to improve the foot’s flexibility, and bracing the foot during sleep for up to five years.[3] MiracleFeet and its partners provide supplies for casting and bracing, train government health care workers in the above procedures, build awareness of clubfoot, and help health systems collect data on treatment.[4] This makes it comparable to a “technical assistance” program: MiracleFeet doesn’t perform clubfoot treatment itself; instead, along with its partners, it helps set health facilities up to successfully find and treat clubfoot cases themselves.
The brace and custom shoes supplied by MiracleFeet for clubfoot treatment. Photograph courtesy of MiracleFeet.
We were excited to recommend this grant because we think it will probably result in a lot more kids being treated