How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program

It focuses on programs it believes do a great deal of good per dollar, and it explains the evidence, costs, and mistakes behind those judgments.

GiveWell researches giving opportunities and publishes its analysis so donors can see how recommendations are made.

Funds on its site direct gifts toward charities and grants that meet its criteria. The organization is not a service provider in the field. Its role is to investigate, compare, and explain, so people who want their donations to go far have a documented basis for choosing.

GiveWell presents this as ongoing work rather than a single event. The public category Looty Foundation uses, Charity Evaluation, is a browsing label. It is not a substitute for the organization's own account of who it serves and how.

It focuses on programs it believes do a great deal of good per dollar, and it explains the evidence, costs, and mistakes behind those judgments. That is point 1 in the public account behind “How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program.” It describes GiveWell’s own work on finds high-impact charities, which is why the page stays with this organization instead of a generic appeal about charity evaluation.

GiveWell researches giving opportunities and publishes its analysis so donors can see how recommendations are made. That is point 2 in the public account behind “How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program.” It describes GiveWell’s own work on finds high-impact charities, which is why the page stays with this organization instead of a generic appeal about charity evaluation.

It focuses on programs it believes do a great deal of good per dollar, and it explains the evidence, costs, and mistakes behind those judgments. That is point 3 in the public account behind “How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program.” It describes GiveWell’s own work on finds high-impact charities, which is why the page stays with this organization instead of a generic appeal about charity evaluation.

Funds on its site direct gifts toward charities and grants that meet its criteria. That is point 4 in the public account behind “How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program.” It describes GiveWell’s own work on finds high-impact charities, which is why the page stays with this organization instead of a generic appeal about charity evaluation.

The organization is not a service provider in the field. That is point 5 in the public account behind “How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program.” It describes GiveWell’s own work on finds high-impact charities, which is why the page stays with this organization instead of a generic appeal about charity evaluation.

Its role is to investigate, compare, and explain, so people who want their donations to go far have a documented basis for choosing. That is point 6 in the public account behind “How GiveWell explains recommendations without pretending to be the field program.” It describes GiveWell’s own work on finds high-impact charities, which is why the page stays with this organization instead of a generic appeal about charity evaluation.

The details above are drawn from GiveWell's public materials, then retold here. They are not a financial audit, a ranking, or a promise about results the organization has not published on the pages used for this article.

For GiveWell’s own wording, use the official website linked from its Looty Foundation profile. This page explains the work in the Foundation directory and points back to that profile and to the other two articles about the same organization.