For this post, GiveWell staff members wrote up the thinking behind their personal donations for the year. Holden Karnofsky There are good arguments that I shouldn’t give anything this year. I tend to think that future giving opportunities will be better than this year’s, even accounting for the costs of delaying. I expect the best…
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Obstacles to “giving as consumption”
GiveWell’s traditional work (the work behind our current top charities) and our work on GiveWell Labs reflect two very different visions of giving. The first, giving as consumption, sees giving as analogous to making a purchase. For every $X one spends, one gets some desirable outcome (such as a life saved), and the goal is…
Discrepancies between our views and our website
There are times when the views expressed on our website can become out of sync with the internal views of staff. Because of the way we run our process, this effect is most pronounced in October and November, just before our annual recommendations refresh. At that time of the year, we’re generally taking the final…
GiveWell’s funding needs
Building GiveWell’s staff has long been one of our top priorities, and one of our most difficult challenges. In 2013, we’ve seen progress on this front like never before. Our staff currently stands at 10 full-time (not “trial”) employees, compared to 5 at the start of 2013 and a maximum of 7 at any point…
Book about giving by GiveWell supporter Eric Friedman
Eric Friedman, a long-time GiveWell supporter, recently authored a book, Reinventing Philanthropy, about effective charitable giving. I read an early draft of the book in the spring of 2012, and especially appreciated Mr. Friedman’s focus on “issue-agnostic giving,” a value we share. For donors looking for more material that’s aligned with our perspective on charitable…
Balancing support from Good Ventures vs. individuals
GiveWell is growing quickly, and we have been wrestling with the question of how we should be seeking to fund our expansion. We are currently working closely with Good Ventures. Good Ventures is a major foundation, and it is interested enough in our work on strategic cause selection – for its own purposes in choosing…