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In September, we announced the Change Our Mind Contest for critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses. Today, we're excited to announce the winners!

We're very grateful that so many people engaged deeply with our work. This contest was GiveWell's most successful effort so far to solicit external criticism from the public, and it wouldn't have been possible without the participation of people who share our goal of allocating funding to cost-effective programs.

Overall, we received 49 entries engaging with our prompts. We were very happy with the quality of entries we received—their authors brought a great deal of thought and expertise to engaging with our cost-effectiveness analyses.

Because we were impressed by the quality of entries, we've decided to award two first-place prizes and eight honorable mentions. (We stated in September that we would give a minimum of one first-place, one runner-up, and one honorable mention prize.) We also awarded $20,000 to the piece of criticism that inspired this contest.

Winners are listed below, followed by our reflections on this contest and responses to the winners.

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The post The winners of the Change Our Mind Contest—and some reflections appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.

You can view previous open threads here.

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The post December 2022 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section below). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately. We’ll try to respond promptly to questions or comments.

You can view previous open threads here.

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The post December 2022 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We wrote back in July that we expected to be funding-constrained this year. That remains true as we approach the end of the year, putting us in the unusual position of leaving impact on the table.

We've set a goal of raising $600 million in 2022, but our research team has identified $900 million in highly cost-effective funding gaps. That leaves $300 million in funding gaps unfilled. By donating this year, you can help us not only meet but exceed our goal—and say yes to more excellent opportunities to save and improve lives.

Additionally, our giving guidance for donors has changed this year. For the first time, our top recommendation is to give to our new All Grants Fund, which we allocate to any need that meets our cost-effectiveness bar. We think it's the best bet for donors who want to support the most promising opportunities we've found to help people, regardless of program or location. And it reflects our current views on how we can best meet our goal of maximizing global well-being—by taking advantage of every path to impact, whether that's funding top charities, seeding and scaling newer programs, or funding research.

Read More

The post Our recommendations for giving in 2022 appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We wrote back in July that we expected to be funding-constrained this year. That remains true as we approach the end of the year, putting us in the unusual position of leaving impact on the table.

We've set a goal of raising $600 million in 2022, but our research team has identified $900 million in highly cost-effective funding gaps. That leaves $300 million in funding gaps unfilled. By donating this year, you can help us not only meet but exceed our goal—and say yes to more excellent opportunities to save and improve lives.

Additionally, our giving guidance for donors has changed this year. For the first time, our top recommendation is to give to our new All Grants Fund, which we allocate to any need that meets our cost-effectiveness bar. We think it's the best bet for donors who want to support the most promising opportunities we've found to help people, regardless of program or location. And it reflects our current views on how we can best meet our goal of maximizing global well-being—by taking advantage of every path to impact, whether that's funding top charities, seeding and scaling newer programs, or funding research.

Read More

The post Our recommendations for giving in 2022 appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We wrote back in July that we expected to be funding-constrained this year. That remains true as we approach the end of the year, putting us in the unusual position of leaving impact on the table.

We've set a goal of raising $600 million in 2022, but our research team has identified $900 million in highly cost-effective funding gaps. That leaves $300 million in funding gaps unfilled. By donating this year, you can help us not only meet but exceed our goal—and say yes to more excellent opportunities to save and improve lives.

Additionally, our giving guidance for donors has changed this year. For the first time, our top recommendation is to give to our new All Grants Fund, which we allocate to any need that meets our cost-effectiveness bar. We think it's the best bet for donors who want to support the most promising opportunities we've found to help people, regardless of program or location. And it reflects our current views on how we can best meet our goal of maximizing global well-being—by taking advantage of every path to impact, whether that's funding top charities, seeding and scaling newer programs, or funding research.

Read More

The post Our recommendations for giving in 2022 appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We wrote back in July that we expected to be funding-constrained this year. That remains true as we approach the end of the year, putting us in the unusual position of leaving impact on the table.

We've set a goal of raising $600 million in 2022, but our research team has identified $900 million in highly cost-effective funding gaps. That leaves $300 million in funding gaps unfilled. By donating this year, you can help us not only meet but exceed our goal—and say yes to more excellent opportunities to save and improve lives.

Additionally, our giving guidance for donors has changed this year. For the first time, our top recommendation is to give to our new All Grants Fund, which we allocate to any need that meets our cost-effectiveness bar. We think it's the best bet for donors who want to support the most promising opportunities we've found to help people, regardless of program or location. And it reflects our current views on how we can best meet our goal of maximizing global well-being—by taking advantage of every path to impact, whether that's funding top charities, seeding and scaling newer programs, or funding research.

Read More

The post Our recommendations for giving in 2022 appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

On June 22, we held a virtual event on research into water quality interventions, featuring presentations from Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago's Development Innovation Lab; Brett Sedgewick from Evidence Action, the parent organization of Dispensers for Safe Water; and Stephan Guyenet, Elie Hassenfeld, and Catherine Hollander of GiveWell. (If you weren't able to attend, we've published a video recording, audio recording, and transcript here.)

We hosted the event to provide some additional background for our recommendation of up to $64.7 million to Dispensers for Safe Water, which installs chlorine dispensers to treat water at rural collection sites in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. This grant was the result of a lengthy investigation and a significant update in our views on the cost-effectiveness of water treatment, which we've written about here.

Several attendees wrote in with a range of thoughtful questions—about our analysis of the effects of chlorination interventions, about the particulars of Dispensers for Safe Water's program, or more generally about our work. We covered as many as we could during the event and followed up on others by email. Below, we're sharing a selection of the questions we responded to in writing, along with other questions we've gotten about this work outside of the event, in the hope that they'll be of interest to a broader audience. Questions and answers have been anonymized; some have been edited slightly for brevity, or to fill in important context that was missing.

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The post Answering some questions about water quality programs appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

On June 22, we held a virtual event on research into water quality interventions, featuring presentations from Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago's Development Innovation Lab; Brett Sedgewick from Evidence Action, the parent organization of Dispensers for Safe Water; and Stephan Guyenet, Elie Hassenfeld, and Catherine Hollander of GiveWell. (If you weren't able to attend, we've published a video recording, audio recording, and transcript here.)

We hosted the event to provide some additional background for our recommendation of up to $64.7 million to Dispensers for Safe Water, which installs chlorine dispensers to treat water at rural collection sites in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. This grant was the result of a lengthy investigation and a significant update in our views on the cost-effectiveness of water treatment, which we've written about here.

Several attendees wrote in with a range of thoughtful questions—about our analysis of the effects of chlorination interventions, about the particulars of Dispensers for Safe Water's program, or more generally about our work. We covered as many as we could during the event and followed up on others by email. Below, we're sharing a selection of the questions we responded to in writing, along with other questions we've gotten about this work outside of the event, in the hope that they'll be of interest to a broader audience. Questions and answers have been anonymized; some have been edited slightly for brevity, or to fill in important context that was missing.

Read More

The post Answering some questions about water quality programs appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately.

Read More

The post September 2022 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

Our goal with hosting quarterly open threads is to give blog readers an opportunity to publicly raise comments or questions about GiveWell or related topics (in the comments section). As always, you’re also welcome to email us at info@givewell.org or to request a call with GiveWell staff if you have feedback or questions you’d prefer to discuss privately.

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The post September 2022 open thread appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We’ve decided to rename the Maximum Impact Fund to better describe what opportunities this fund supports. The Maximum Impact Fund will now be called the Top Charities Fund.

We recently announced changes to our top charity criteria that include a new requirement for our top charities: that we have a high degree of confidence in our expectations about the impact of their programs. Alongside this update, we also introduced a new giving option, the All Grants Fund. The All Grants Fund supports the full range of GiveWell’s grantmaking and can be allocated to any grant that meets our cost-effectiveness bar—including opportunities outside of our top charities and riskier grants with high expected value.

The new All Grants Fund is a complement to what we have called our Maximum Impact Fund, which is granted to cost-effective opportunities among our top charities. However, we’ve received feedback that describing the fund which supports grantmaking only to our top charities as having “Maximum Impact” is confusing in light of the opportunity to support a wider range of opportunities (with potentially higher expected value) through the All Grants Fund.

Based on this feedback, we’ve decided to change the name of the Maximum Impact Fund to the Top Charities Fund.

Read More

The post The Maximum Impact Fund is now the Top Charities Fund appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We’ve decided to rename the Maximum Impact Fund to better describe what opportunities this fund supports. The Maximum Impact Fund will now be called the Top Charities Fund.

We recently announced changes to our top charity criteria that include a new requirement for our top charities: that we have a high degree of confidence in our expectations about the impact of their programs. Alongside this update, we also introduced a new giving option, the All Grants Fund. The All Grants Fund supports the full range of GiveWell’s grantmaking and can be allocated to any grant that meets our cost-effectiveness bar—including opportunities outside of our top charities and riskier grants with high expected value.

The new All Grants Fund is a complement to what we have called our Maximum Impact Fund, which is granted to cost-effective opportunities among our top charities. However, we’ve received feedback that describing the fund which supports grantmaking only to our top charities as having “Maximum Impact” is confusing in light of the opportunity to support a wider range of opportunities (with potentially higher expected value) through the All Grants Fund.

Based on this feedback, we’ve decided to change the name of the Maximum Impact Fund to the Top Charities Fund.

Read More

The post The Maximum Impact Fund is now the Top Charities Fund appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We’ve decided to rename the Maximum Impact Fund to better describe what opportunities this fund supports. The Maximum Impact Fund will now be called the Top Charities Fund.

We recently announced changes to our top charity criteria that include a new requirement for our top charities: that we have a high degree of confidence in our expectations about the impact of their programs. Alongside this update, we also introduced a new giving option, the All Grants Fund. The All Grants Fund supports the full range of GiveWell’s grantmaking and can be allocated to any grant that meets our cost-effectiveness bar—including opportunities outside of our top charities and riskier grants with high expected value.

The new All Grants Fund is a complement to what we have called our Maximum Impact Fund, which is granted to cost-effective opportunities among our top charities. However, we’ve received feedback that describing the fund which supports grantmaking only to our top charities as having “Maximum Impact” is confusing in light of the opportunity to support a wider range of opportunities (with potentially higher expected value) through the All Grants Fund.

Based on this feedback, we’ve decided to change the name of the Maximum Impact Fund to the Top Charities Fund.

Read More

The post The Maximum Impact Fund is now the Top Charities Fund appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We're extremely excited to be announcing the Change Our Mind Contest to encourage critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses that could lead to substantial improvements of our overall allocation of funds. For all the details, see this page.

Cost-effectiveness is the single most important input in our decisions about what programs to recommend, and we believe it's possible that we're missing important considerations or making mistakes that lead us to allocate funding suboptimally. We've been excited to see people engaging with our cost-effectiveness analyses, and we'd like to inspire more of that engagement.

With that in mind, we're inviting you to identify potentially important mistakes or weaknesses in our existing cost-effectiveness analyses and tell us about them!

Read More

The post Announcing the Change Our Mind Contest for critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We're extremely excited to be announcing the Change Our Mind Contest to encourage critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses that could lead to substantial improvements of our overall allocation of funds. For all the details, see this page.

Cost-effectiveness is the single most important input in our decisions about what programs to recommend, and we believe it's possible that we're missing important considerations or making mistakes that lead us to allocate funding suboptimally. We've been excited to see people engaging with our cost-effectiveness analyses, and we'd like to inspire more of that engagement.

With that in mind, we're inviting you to identify potentially important mistakes or weaknesses in our existing cost-effectiveness analyses and tell us about them!

Read More

The post Announcing the Change Our Mind Contest for critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

We're extremely excited to be announcing the Change Our Mind Contest to encourage critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses that could lead to substantial improvements of our overall allocation of funds. For all the details, see this page.

Cost-effectiveness is the single most important input in our decisions about what programs to recommend, and we believe it's possible that we're missing important considerations or making mistakes that lead us to allocate funding suboptimally. We've been excited to see people engaging with our cost-effectiveness analyses, and we'd like to inspire more of that engagement.

With that in mind, we're inviting you to identify potentially important mistakes or weaknesses in our existing cost-effectiveness analyses and tell us about them!

Read More

The post Announcing the Change Our Mind Contest for critiques of our cost-effectiveness analyses appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

GiveWell UK is now fully registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in the United Kingdom. Our UK supporters now have a tax-deductible option for donating directly to GiveWell!

We've launched GiveWell UK as a UK Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), with the registered charity number 1196392, and the official UK partner of GiveWell. Beginning with the 2022 tax year, eligible UK taxpayers may take tax deductions for donations to GiveWell UK.( These donations are also eligible for Gift Aid.

GiveWell UK donations may be directed toward GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund (MIF), All Grants Fund, top charities, or unrestricted support for GiveWell's US operations. Donations will be granted out on a quarterly basis in line with the recommendations of GiveWell’s US-based research team, upon the approval of GiveWell UK’s trustees (more here).

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The post Our UK supporters can now make tax-deductible donations through GiveWell UK appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

GiveWell UK is now fully registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in the United Kingdom. Our UK supporters now have a tax-deductible option for donating directly to GiveWell!

We've launched GiveWell UK as a UK Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), with the registered charity number 1196392, and the official UK partner of GiveWell. Beginning with the 2022 tax year, eligible UK taxpayers may take tax deductions for donations to GiveWell UK.( These donations are also eligible for Gift Aid.

GiveWell UK donations may be directed toward GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund (MIF), All Grants Fund, top charities, or unrestricted support for GiveWell's US operations. Donations will be granted out on a quarterly basis in line with the recommendations of GiveWell’s US-based research team, upon the approval of GiveWell UK’s trustees (more here).

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The post Our UK supporters can now make tax-deductible donations through GiveWell UK appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.

Since 2007, GiveWell has maintained a list of top charities. The organizations and programs on that list have changed over time, but the goal has remained the same: to help donors decide where to give.

In service of that goal, we've spent roughly the last year working on a plan to add to and update our criteria for top charities, so that they accurately reflect our prioritization of funding opportunities and are more helpful to donors. The revised criteria emphasize programs from which we expect high impact, with the additional requirement that we have a high degree of confidence in our expectation.

We hope these changes will also draw a brighter line for donors between our top charities and other excellent funding opportunities we support, a distinction that we haven't always made clear. Recognizing that some donors want to contribute to grants outside our top charities list, we're also introducing a new giving option: the All Grants Fund. Providing this option as a complement to the Maximum Impact Fund is an important step as grants to programs outside our top charities become a bigger part of our work.

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The post Changes to our top charity criteria, and a new giving option appeared first on The GiveWell Blog.