As I noted on the 80,000 Hours thread, intermediaries are nearly always an added expense on the distribution side. In this case, distribution of donations. The immediate impact is that fewer donation dollars (or whatever currency) find their way to the target organizations. The exception is if an intermediate organization facilitates a 100% pass-through, due to other funding or altruistic efforts.
As I noted on the 80,000 Hours thread, intermediaries are nearly always an added expense on the distribution side. In this case, distribution of donations. The immediate impact is that fewer donation dollars (or whatever currency) find their way to the target organizations.
A good source that backs you up on this is Fiennes's book " It Ain’t What You Give, It’s the Way That You Give It: Making Charitable Donations That Get Results" (which I strongly recommend for anyone interesting in the issues of rational charity giving).
Both GiveWell and the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) --an Oxford-based umbrella organization consisting of Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, The Life You Can Save, and Effective Animal Activism-- have been discussed here before. So I thought some folks might want to know that these organizations are recruiting for a number of positions. Here are relevant excerpts from the official job announcements:
(Full disclosure: I'm friends with the co-founders of CEA and have donated to Effective Animal Activism.)