shokwave comments on Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others... - Less Wrong
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I don't see your point.
$1 given to Charity Navigator is $1 given to Charity Navigator; $1 given to charity X at Charity Navigator's recommendation is $1 given to charity X.
$1 given to GiveWell is 85 cents given to GiveWell and 15 cents given to charities Y and Z. $1 given to charity X at GiveWell's recommendation is $1 given to charity X.
This is a point in favour of GiveWell, by any measure.
Only if you assume that (a) donors are actually aware of an 85%:15% split in the charities' disfavor; (b) approve of that. I would expect the naive assumption to be on the order of 90%:10% in charities' favor, but maybe that's just me.
Now, their donation pages for separate charities eg http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/villagereach/donate do state that the donation is direct to the charity, which is .a good thing.
So it's "I'm willing to take your money for me, but if you want to give it to X, give it to X directly" vs "I'm willing to take your money for me to split between me and X, or you can give it to X". Now on the face of it, that looks like X would get more money in the second scenario, as you point out. However there is an inherent naive assumption there that the split will be fair to X. If Donor A wanted to give $50 to Charity Navigator and $50 to charities through Charity Navigator, A has to give those amounts separately. If A wants to give $50 to Givewell and $50 to charities through Givewell, A may be tempted to just give $100 to Givewell under the assumption that Givewell will split it $50/$50. I suggest that donors who assumed that Givewell will be splitting at 50%/50% or better, have been if not deceived, at least permitted to operate under a false assumption where the one who could correct the assumption (ie, Givewell) benefits from not doing so. I think the split with potential breach of trust is more ethically dubious than the known split.
I'll admit that it's possible that Givewell have cleaned their act up since 2007. But they seem to have a significantly higher online profile than Charity Navigator, while also seeming to have a smaller number of charities rated and smaller amount of money donated due to their influence, which "smells funny" (or if you prefer, triggers heuristic estimates of suspiciousness) to me.
I don't know what metric you're using to determine whether CN or GiveWell has a significantly higher online profile, but "charitynavigator.org" returns ten times as many hits on Google as "givewell.org"
No doubt about it, Charity Navigator evaluates more charities, but they're able to do so because they use a substantially less rigorous methodology. They carry out a fundamentally different function: they're a watchdog group, aiming to avoid fraud, while GiveWell conducts research to try to find excellent charities, a much more difficult task. (Looks like Yvain makes this point above).
Because it's younger and appeals to a smaller group of people that want to maximize their impact, GiveWell moves substantially less money than Charity Navigator (though it's growing).
Edit: I've been a fan of the GiveWell project for quite some time, and have an informal agreement to join GiveWell as an employee in mid-2011. I'm a student and was commenting simply on my own behalf, without any discussion with GiveWell. After Holden commented, I emailed him to say that I had commented, and he recommended that I disclose my plan to work for them.
"we may use these funds for operating expenses or grants to charities, at our discretion" (source: http://www.givewell.org/about/donate ) This does not imply "we will treat the charities fairly" at all. It implies nothing about the numerical split.
My quick attempt to find charity navigator's favorite charities: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten.detail&listid=100 There are several universities drowning in money on this list. That does not sound very efficient. Looking for an explanation, they seem to care too much about % operating expenses and so on, and not enough about real impact.
Doing the same for GiveWell (looking at US to make it more comparable): http://www.givewell.org/united-states/top-charities We have two charities. Both are evaluated based on marginal impact and measured effectiveness. The second, KIPP, is an extremely "cool" program.
Conclusion: It appears as though GiveWell recommends more efficient charities with better criteria. GiveWell also seems to behave in a manner that sounds better to Internet geeks, for example with their mistake list. This is sufficient explanation for their Internet popularity.
It is possible that Donor A may choose to donate fully to GiveWell for many reasons, including a prior assumption that it's 50:50 or better without checking easily available facts. This reflects badly on Donor A, not GiveWell, and does not in any way make a case for calling GiveWell "ethically questionable". The most you could possibly say is "GiveWell does not overly pander to the lowest common denominator enough" but these people are already donating their money to Make a Wish foundation or something equally silly.
I belabour this point because charities run solely on their appearance as ethical, and to the extent that your comments deprive GiveWell of possible donations on the basis of spurious claims, you're doing a bad thing.
This is Holden Karnofsky, the co-Executive Director of GiveWell. As a frequent Less Wrong reader, I'm really glad to see the thoughtful discussion here. Thanks to Yvain for calling attention both to GiveWell and to the general topic of effective giving.
First off, much of this content overlaps with our own, so people interested in this thread might also find the following links interesting:
I'm mostly posting to clarify a few things regarding the concerns that have been raised about GiveWell (by aeschenkarnos).
We've worked to find the best, most cost-effective charities (in terms of actual impact per marginal dollar) and write up all the details of our analysis. We welcome more comments and questions about our work, whether here, on our blog, or via email.
Alright. You've given an explanation here that seems reasonable to me, and you've continued to run GiveWell for significantly longer than I would have expected if you were just in it for yourselves. For what it's worth, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and I wish you well in your mission.