GiveWell's Impact

Last updated: December 2023

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 2022:1

2021 2022 Y/Y Growth
Funds Raised $595,489,935 $602,889,435 1%
Funds Directed2 $529,426,944 $439,391,294 -17%

Funds raised

In 2022, we raised slightly more funding than during 2021, and substantially more than prior years.3

The single largest source of funding to GiveWell-recommended organizations in 2022 was Open Philanthropy, which provided $350 million (58%) of our funds raised. Individual donors provided $228 million (38%), and Effective Altruism groups contributed $24.7 million (4%).

2022 Funds Raised by category Amount % of Total
GiveWell-allocated funds $545,647,396 91%
Top Charities Fund donations $90,897,795 15%
All Grants Fund donations $30,639,645 5%
Unrestricted funds $74,250,466 12%
Other GiveWell-allocated funds4 $349,859,490 58%
Donor-designated funds $57,242,039 9%
Total $602,889,435 100%

We are excited by a continuing trend of donors trusting GiveWell with the decision on how to allocate their donation instead of choosing to restrict their donation to a particular charity. In 2022, GiveWell decided how to allocate 91% of the donations we raised, compared to 86% the prior year. GiveWell-allocated funds include donations to one of our giving funds:

  • The All Grants Fund was our top recommendation for end-of-year giving in 2022. The fund, which makes grants on a rolling basis, allows donors to contribute to the most impactful grant opportunities we've identified, regardless of program or location. The All Grants Fund provides grants to our top charities as well as grants to incubate newer programs, promote policy change, fund relevant research, or support other potentially high-impact, cost-effective initiatives that don’t fit neat categorization.
  • The Top Charities Fund supports our four top charities. We make grants on a rolling basis throughout the year to the highest priority funding needs at the time, taking into consideration funding gaps, plans for additional funding, and the cost-effectiveness of the funding gaps.
  • Unrestricted Fund, which can be used for any GiveWell priority, including grantmaking and our own operating expenses. The amount raised in 2022 was substantially more than our operating expenses. Per our "excess assets" policy, we grant out unrestricted funds that exceed the amount we think we could productively use. Additionally, we sometimes receive large unrestricted donations that exceed the 20% cap we place on operations support from any single donor (see more about this cap here), and in those cases we may choose to grant out the excess funds or to reserve some portion of that donation to fund 20% of our operations in a future year.

Funds directed

Of the funds we directed this year, $303 million (69%) went to our four current top charities, with $123 million (29%) going to Malaria Consortium for its seasonal malaria chemoprevention program, $83 million (20%) to Helen Keller International for its vitamin A supplementation program, $70 million (16%) going to New Incentives for its program of conditional cash transfers to promote immunization, and $27 million (6%) going to the Against Malaria Foundation for its long-lasting insecticide-treated nets program to prevent malaria. While the majority of our funds directed in 2022 were allocated to current top charities, about $40 million was allocated to former top charities, and about $82 million was directed to about 40 other programs. You can see a full breakdown of the funds we directed by organization and program in our full report.

2022 Funds directed by category 2021 2022 Y/Y Growth
Funds directed to charities $518,111,475 $425,224,570 -18%
Funding directed to current and former
top charities
$328,221,262 $342,811,054 5%
Funding directed to other organizations and
programs
$189,890,213 $82,416,516 -57%
GiveWell's operations $11,315,469 $14,166,724 25%
Total $529,426,944 $439,391,294 -17%

Note that our funds directed is lower than our funds raised. The funds we raised that were not directed include:

  • Funds from Open Philanthropy that will be used for grantmaking in future years. Because we anticipated that funding from Open Philanthropy would be lower in the future, we did not expend all of its funds this year, in order to smooth our funding trajectory and ensure that the most cost-effective funding gaps we find can be filled in coming years.5 These funds make up the majority of the funds raised that have not yet been directed.
  • "Contingency funds" committed to charities under particular grant agreements but only paid out under certain conditions of the grant. (If those conditions are not met, we reallocate the funding to other opportunities.)
  • Top Charities Fund and All Grants Fund donations raised in a given metrics year but allocated in the following year (these appear as funds directed in the following year). Typically, this occurs with the large volume of donations received near the end of the calendar year.6
  • Unrestricted funds raised in a given metrics year but not spent on operations or granted out to charities in that year (these appear as funds directed in the year they are allocated).7

For more information about our funds raised, funds directed, operational expenses, and donor metrics, see the full metrics report.

GiveWell Metrics Report – 2022 Annual Review

Previous metrics reports

  • 1

    GiveWell'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.

  • 2

    In 2022, as in 2021, we raised more funds than we directed. For more on this, see the section on funds directed in our full report.

  • 3

    Note 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.

  • 4

    The majority of "Other GiveWell-allocated funds" is funding from Open Philanthropy. This category also includes grants we recommended to funders other than Open Philanthropy, and funding from groups that operate funds similar to our Top Charities Fund and seek our input on how to allocate their donations.

  • 5

    See this blog post for more information about Open Philanthropy's future funding and this blog post for more information about our response to shifting funding expectations.

  • 6

    These funds were allocated as of July 2023.

  • 7

    The Clear Fund Board of Directors, which oversees GiveWell, votes to designate unrestricted funds at the annual budget review meeting, which typically takes place each July.