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 (for the time being), we won'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.

Published: August 10, 2012

Summary

Think Humanity works with refugees in Africa to fight malaria, provide clean water, and offer other aid.1 We considered Think Humanity for an in-depth evaluation because it reports conducting monitoring surveys and finding promising results,2 and because it distributes insecticide-treated nets, a priority program.

After corresponding with Think Humanity representatives and reviewing their financial statements, we decided not to prioritize further research on them because of their small size (total revenue of $99,346 in 2011).3

Sources

• Heckel, Jim. President of Think Humanity. Email to GiveWell (DOC), August 7, 2012.
• Think Humanity. About Us. http://www.thinkhumanity.org/about (accessed August 10, 2012). Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/69onIIGOv.
• Think Humanity. IRS form 990 (2011) (PDF).
• Think Humanity. Program meds and nets. http://www.Thinkhumanity.org/projects.html?id=2 (accessed March 30, 2011). Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/5xZRW7PCi.

• 1.

  "Think Humanity grew from a small organization supplying mosquito nets to one that also provides healthcare, water wells, education and socio-economic development projects."
  Think Humanity, "About Us."

• 2.

  "A survey and project retrospective follows each distribution. A survey was conducted in September 2009 in Kyangwali Refugee Camp and the results of the survey showed a 88 percent reduction in incidences of malaria. Mosquito nets were distributed in the Acholi Quarter Camp July 2010. A survey was conducted in January 2011 and the results of the survey showed a 93 percent reduction in incidences of malaria.” Think Humanity, “Program Meds and Nets.”

• 3.
  • Think Humanity, "IRS Form 990 (2011)."
  • Jim Heckel, email to GiveWell, August 7, 2012.