AidGrade - GiveWell finally has some competition

Raemon

AidGrade is a new charity evaluator that looks to be comparable to GiveWell. Their primary difference is that they *only* focus on how charities compare along particular measured outcomes (such as school attendance, birthrate, chance of opening a business, malaria), without making any effort to compare between types of charities. (This includes interesting results like "Conditional Cash Transfers and Deworming are better at improving attendance rates than scholarships")

GiveWell also does this, but designs their site to direct people towards their top charities. This is better for people with don't have the time to do the (fairly complex) work of comparing charities across domains, but AidGrade aims to be better for people that just want the raw data and the ability to form their own conclusions.

I haven't looked it enough to compare the quality of the two organizations' work, but I'm glad we finally have another organization, to encourage some competition and dialog about different approaches.

This is a fun page to play around with to get a feel for what they do:
http://www.aidgrade.org/compare-programs-by-outcome

And this is a blog post outlining their differences with GiveWell:
http://www.aidgrade.org/uncategorized/some-friendly-concerns-with-givewell

This is a fun page to play around with to get a feel for what they do:
http://www.aidgrade.org/compare-programs-by-outcome

And this is a blog post outlining their differences with GiveWell:
http://www.aidgrade.org/uncategorized/some-friendly-concerns-with-givewell

I think getting things up is the right priority! (And I'm glad you are doing this and don't mean to discourage you at all, though I was annoyed by this post.)

Sorry I accused you of closing comments. Trying to block spam comments is completely understandable, though the fact that the comments section reads "Comments are closed" is hopefully understandably confusing :) Edit: actually I just logged in, and still can't comment.

I agree that there is room for quantitative analysis, and I agree that you are better positioned to provide that than GiveWell (I made a brief concession to this at the start, which perhaps should have been longer but for my unjustified ill humor). I agree that GiveWell lacks staff with relevant skills, but I think the evidence you cite is weak (mostly errors of omission in an expository blog post) and you overstate the case.

I think that in cases like the microfinance meta-analysis, where there are in fact big confounds, GiveWell's take is more reliable than most meta-analyses (and without seeing your meta-analysis, I would default to trusting GiveWell over you in this case). I think disparaging their approach as vote counting is misleading and places too much confidence in the methodology of your metaanalyses. I'm prepared to be surprised, but the empirical track record of meta-analyses is simply not that good.

Yes, the comment about "choice paralysis" was a response to Raemon. I forget that in a different context that may look like misattribution, sorry about that.

GiveWell makes recommendations. It seems like at the end of the day, people need to donate, and GiveWell's judgment about how to weigh intermediates is better than the average donor's. So it seems like they are making the right call there (it's not coincidental this is what donors wanted, since they understand that GiveWell's judgment on that question is better than their own).

GiveWell also discusses the various intermediates that are being weighed against each other, and their reasoning with respect to those intermediates. I do not think their discussion is great nor their positions solidly justified, and I disagree with them on many points. But I don't see anyone else anywhere who is trying to have that discussion, and it seems like GiveWell is actively encouraging rather than discouraging it (to wit, the community around GiveWell seems to be one of the few places to find serious, reasonable discussion about this issue).

I basically stand by my criticisms, though I do apologize about my tone. I considered editing my original message but think it's better to let it stand. I'll make a more respectable comment at the original. I think the world is probably better for AidGrade's existence, I agree there are gaps in GiveWell's coverage that can be filled (and core services that could be profitably replicated) and I hope that both groups can do better than they would in isolation. I'll be more civil going forward--cheers!

First, thanks to paulfchristiano for the moderation. I'm also trying to be moderate, but it's sometimes hard to gauge one's own tone on the internet.

Now, apologies for replying to numerous points from different people in one post, but I would feel strange posting all over the place here and this is probably my last post. It would be helpful if people have more questions to send them directly and I can try to address them on the blog as multitasking (as well as so that more people can benefit from the answers, since as good as Less Wrong is, I doubt it woul... (read more)

3Raemon13y

Apologies to everyone involved for the "Choice paralysis" line. It was (I thought a bit more obviously), an exaggeration. To be clear: I myself rely on GiveWell, not to do identify the best charity for me, but to establish a lower bound on what "the most effective charity" might be, which I can compare to my best efforts at reviewing more-difficult-to-evaluate-but-probably-higher-impact charities (like, say, CFAR). And this is neither "choice paralysis" nor "not having any idea what to do." I'll change the OP to be less flippant. I want to express my thanks to Eva for starting this project, and wish her luck and will getting more research done and the website updated with more content in the days/weeks/months to come.

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AidGrade - GiveWell finally has some competition

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AidGrade - GiveWell finally has some competition

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