Category: Uncategorized
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Bringing the Economic Benefits of Reading Glasses into Focus
It started in my early forties, and it’s only gotten worse since then. At first, it was a mild annoyance, but now it affects my quality of life and makes it harder to get things done. I’m definitely not alone—almost every middle-aged person I know has the same problem—and maybe you do too: a condition…
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What If We Have Extra?
What do you do if you’re in the very fortunate position of having more money than you need to meet your own immediate needs? You might find new things to buy. You might stockpile it for a rainy day. You might donate it to cost-effective global health programs. Or you might do some combination of…
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More than a Spoonful of Medicine
What does it take to prevent malaria? Some of the programs GiveWell recommends might sound straightforward—for example, seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) programs provide antimalarial drugs to young children—but the process of accomplishing this is not simple at all. Below, we offer a post from Malaria Consortium that describes the many complex steps required to carry…
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Some Things We’re Reading
Today we’re sharing a few quotes from pieces we’ve come across recently in our work—claims have not been vetted, and (of course) interest is not endorsement. “The story of Ethiopian manufacturing—its rise, its faltering, and its potential for renewal—is an example, I believe, of where a little more empathy can lead to better economics.” (Oliver…
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100 miles of monitoring
We’re crossposting a blog post by New Incentives, one of our grantee organizations and Top Charities. New Incentives promotes vaccination in Northern Nigeria by providing cash incentives to parents and caregivers. Recently, one of New Incentives’ field officers wrote about his experience collecting program data. GiveWell asks all of our Top Charities to share detailed…
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Research strategy: Water
Written by Erin Crossett and Keir Bradwell Water is a relatively new area of grantmaking for GiveWell, but we’re excited about its potential. Two billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water, and unclean water is a major cause of illness and death, primarily through waterborne diseases such as diarrhea and cholera.…
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The fungibility question: How does GiveWell’s funding affect other funders?
How do GiveWell’s funding decisions influence the actions of governments, funders, and other organizations? Answering this question is an important part of figuring out which global health programs are most cost-effective and thus which we should support. We’ve already written about two key factors in our cost-effectiveness estimates: the cost per person reached and the…
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Increasing impact by combining programs
The idea has obvious intuitive appeal: If you’re already sending community healthcare workers door-to-door in (say) remote parts of Sierra Leone to deliver routine childhood vaccines, why not have those healthcare workers deliver chlorine for disinfecting drinking water, or oral rehydration solution for treating dehydration from diarrhea? After all, if you’re already spending money on…
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Researcher spotlight: Erin Crossett, GiveWell Program Officer
Our research team spends over 50,000 hours a year looking for cost-effective organizations and interventions to save and improve lives, with the goal of producing the world’s top research on where to give. This interview with Program Officer Erin Crossett provides a glimpse into the world of GiveWell research. Q: What made you interested in…
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The hardest part about fundraising for GiveWell
May marked my three-year anniversary as a Philanthropy Advisor at GiveWell. It’s a job I adore (as I’ve written about here and here), and I’ve recently been tasked with the exciting process of interviewing candidates for our growing team. One of the best questions I’ve been asked in this process is: What’s the hardest part…
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