About this page
GiveWell aims to find the best giving opportunities we can and recommend them to donors. We tend to put a lot of investigation into the organizations we find most promising, and de-prioritize others based on limited information. When we decide not to prioritize an organization, we try to create a brief writeup of our thoughts on that charity because we want to be as transparent as possible about our reasoning.
The following write-up should be viewed in this context: it explains why we determined that we wouldn't be prioritizing the organization in question as a potential top charity. This write-up should not be taken as a "negative rating" of the charity. Rather, it is our attempt to be as clear as possible about the process by which we came to our top recommendations.
A note on this page's publication date
The last time we examined Oxfam International was in 2009. In our latest open-ended review of charities, we determined that it was unlikely to meet our criteria based on our past examination of it, so we did not revisit it.
We invite all charities that feel they meet our criteria to apply for consideration.
The content we created in 2009 appears below. This content is likely to be no longer fully accurate, both with respect to what it says about Oxfam International and with respect to what it implies about our own views and positions. With that said, we do feel that the takeaways from this examination are sufficient not to prioritize re-opening our investigation of this organization at this time.
Published: March 2010
Details of our evaluations
Oxfam is a large charity focused on a diverse set of activities related to international aid and development.1
We have considered Oxfam at two times: Oxfam applied for a grant in late-2009, and we reviewed their website in mid-2009. Details on each follow below.
2009 grant application
Oxfam America applied for funding through our grant application process for organizations working on economic empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Oxfam America did not advance past our Round 1 screen because it did not meet any of the criteria below. For more information about this grant, see our overview page for this grant.
Our criteria
We looked for the following in conducting our Round 1 screen and considered further any organization that met at least one of the criteria below:
- The charity primarily transfers cash directly to poor individuals
- The charity provided a rigorous impact study demonstrating program effect
- The charity is using donations to create profitable programs
- The charity primarily runs microfinance programs and can answer our questions for microfinance charities
For more information about why we chose these, see our reasoning behind these criteria.
Sources
Oxfam asked that we keep all submitted documents confidential.
- Oxfam International. What we do. http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/what (accessed May 5, 2010). Archive by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/5pV6FJpyC.
2009 website review
In mid-2009, we reviewed the Oxfam America's website as part of a process to identify top international aid organizations. (How did we identify charities for review?) We reviewed Oxfam America's website to determine whether it met either of the following two criteria, which we believe indicate whether a charity is likely to eventually be able to meet our full criteria for a recommendation: (Why do we rely on information found on a charity's website?)
- Does the charity publish high-quality monitoring and evaluation reports on its website? A charity meets this criterion if it freely publishes - on its website - substantial evidence regarding impact that (a) discusses how the impacts of projects or programs were evaluated, including what information was collected and how it was collected; (b) discusses the actual impact of the evaluated projects. (Why is monitoring and evaluation so important?) We seek enough evidence to be confident that a charity changed lives for the better - not simply that it carried out its activities as intended. Different programs aim for different sorts of life change, and must be assessed on different terms. We do not hold to a single universal rule for determining what "impact" we're looking for; rather, what we look for varies by program type. (For more, see, What constitutes impact?)
- Does the charity stand out for program selection? A charity meets this criterion if it focuses primarily on (or publishes enough financial information to make it clear that 75% of its recent funding is devoted to) what we consider "priority programs." These programs have particularly strong evidence bases, enough to lower the burden of proof on a charity running them. (Why do we look for charities implementing proven programs?) Such programs include administering vaccinations, distributing insecticide-treated nets, and treating tuberculosis, among many others. (For more, see our full list of priority programs.)
Oxfam America did not meet either of these criteria.
- 1.
Oxfam International, "What We Do."