The GiveWell Blog

Tears of straw

It’s very unlikely – maybe impossible – that the Straw Ratio bothers you as much as it bothers me. So I’m going to try to spill out all the ranting I have left on this topic over the next few posts, and then we’ll completely be done with it, at least until the next time…

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Dear Executive Director, please fire your staff

It’s important that everyone involved in a nonprofit’s mission be accountable. We are working to find the organizations that use their resources in the best possible way. You all are hopefully keeping an eye on our work to test the reasoning in our reviews, and to make sure that we are choosing the best organizations…

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FAQ: What qualifies us to issue evaluations?

We are not health experts, education experts, or social science experts, and we don’t pretend to be. We are donors, working through – and communicating about – the decisions all donors must work through. We do not see our role as designing, managing, improving, or measuring charitable programs; we see our role as understanding these…

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FAQ: What are our criteria?

You can see the criteria we have used so far on our website. Furthermore, all of our reviews should be explicit about why they say everything they say, and where every rating comes from. If you don’t believe they are, we want to hear about it. There is an understandable desire for universal, “objective” criteria…

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