Speaker 1: Bush Kid, This is solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. At our core,
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do is improve human wellbeing as
Speaker 1: much as possible. The holidays the season for charity, the
Speaker 1: time when we give away money to the causes we
Speaker 1: care about and to help people who are suffering. But
Speaker 1: how do we make our decisions about where to give?
Speaker 1: For many of us, it's just a matter of habit
Speaker 1: or responding to solicitations or the disaster or crisis that
Speaker 1: seems the most present. But should we be thinking about
Speaker 1: the effectiveness of our giving, how much suffering can be alleviated,
Speaker 1: how many lives saved for the same donated dollar. We
Speaker 1: live in a world in which there are really cost effective,
Speaker 1: proven ways to save the lives of kids that are dying,
Speaker 1: and at least as a benchmark, we should be able
Speaker 1: to say, you know, you could and ten million dollars
Speaker 1: distributing anti malarial bednets, and those ten million dollars are
Speaker 1: going to protect two to four million households from getting
Speaker 1: malaria and are going to save the lives of several
Speaker 1: thousand people. It sounds like a lot of the programs
Speaker 1: that you fond are directly connected to measurable things like
Speaker 1: health and consumption. Can you imagine this applying to other
Speaker 1: areas of charity. I think it extends to far more
Speaker 1: areas of charity than one would think. Buddy Shaws the
Speaker 1: managing director of give Well, an organization that researches the
Speaker 1: impact of giving across a variety of causes and makes
Speaker 1: recommendations for where and how to give. My solvable is
Speaker 1: helping people identify charities that do the most good per
Speaker 1: dollar spent. My co host an Apple Bomb, spoke with
Speaker 1: Buddy about the importance of giving and how his organization
Speaker 1: evaluates the many worthy causes out there. Here's their conversation.
Speaker 1: Thinking back to when you were a child young adult,
Speaker 1: what's your earliest memory of donating money to a charitable cause?
Speaker 1: Actually growing up? You know, I grew up in rural,
Speaker 1: small town Pennsylvania, but we would go to visit my
Speaker 1: family in East Africa and India fairly regularly, and so
Speaker 1: probably the earliest memory I have of donating money or
Speaker 1: doing something that's charitable is going with my grandfather in
Speaker 1: a rural part of western India and serving food at
Speaker 1: a school for death and mute children. And did your
Speaker 1: family talk about charity. Was there a conversation at home
Speaker 1: about it as well? There were conversations about I think
Speaker 1: social justice, not charity so narrowly, but definitely that you know,
Speaker 1: we're very fortunate to be living comfortable, upper middle class
Speaker 1: lives in the United States. I remember reading John Rawls
Speaker 1: The Theory of Justice my freshman year of college, where
Speaker 1: he talks about our moral standing in this world, or
Speaker 1: what we actually have access to is an accident of birth.
Speaker 1: And when I was reading that, basically it brought me
Speaker 1: back to those memories visiting family in Africa and India
Speaker 1: and recognizing that the fact that I was born in
Speaker 1: the US meant that I had far more opportunities than
Speaker 1: even my relatives and other people that I would regularly
Speaker 1: interact with on those trips. And there seemed to be
Speaker 1: something that was fundamentally morally unjust about the fact that
Speaker 1: I had a much better shot at leaving a full
Speaker 1: and meaningful life than those people did simply by virtue
Speaker 1: of where I happened to be born. Still, give will
Speaker 1: is something more specific than the kind of charity you
Speaker 1: were used to growing up. First of all, maybe you
Speaker 1: could tell us a little bit about what it does
Speaker 1: what's the aim of give will, Yeah, so GiveWell. Really,
Speaker 1: what we're about is trying to find the charities that
Speaker 1: save or improve lives most cost effectively. Essentially, what we're
Speaker 1: looking for our programs that have strong evidence of effectiveness,
Speaker 1: that what they're intending to do is actually leading to
Speaker 1: improvements in people's lives. But beyond the evidence of effectiveness
Speaker 1: is that they're extremely cost effective, that they do that
Speaker 1: with as little money as possible. Two examples are one
Speaker 1: in global malaria, so hundreds of thousands of kids die
Speaker 1: every year simply because they don't have access to a
Speaker 1: five dollars anti malarial bednet or other malaria preventive treatments,
Speaker 1: and give Well essentially as found through rigorous research that
Speaker 1: the academic literature shows that if you can get an
Speaker 1: anti malarial bednet into the hands of a family, if
Speaker 1: they hang it up properly and sleep under it, that
Speaker 1: that's extremely cost effective at saving lives. And then we
Speaker 1: do the work to make sure that we find organizations
Speaker 1: that are able to do that as cost effectively as
Speaker 1: possible and that have more capacity to absorb funding and
Speaker 1: deliver those programs. And so based on all of that research,
Speaker 1: we make recommendations to anyone looking to make a charitable
Speaker 1: donation so that their money goes as far as possible.
Speaker 1: And how do you measure effectiveness? Is it to do
Speaker 1: with length of life? Is it to do with you know,
Speaker 1: the amount of food people have, is its standard of living?
Speaker 1: What is your ruler that you're using. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is a really hard question because you know, at our core,
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do is improve human wellbeing as
Speaker 1: much as possible, and so we're actually agnostic on the
Speaker 1: actual cause, whether that's improving incomes or lives or education.
Speaker 1: But obviously if you're choosing between a bunch of different charities,
Speaker 1: you're forced to make these very challenging trade offs. And
Speaker 1: so where Gibbill is currently focused is on programs that
Speaker 1: save lives or programs that improve people's consumption or material
Speaker 1: well being. Last year, we directed over one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars, and the question is how much of
Speaker 1: that money should go to programs that save people's lives
Speaker 1: versus how much of that money should go to prove
Speaker 1: in cost effective ways that improve incomes. And that forces
Speaker 1: us to make very challenging moral trade offs and ask
Speaker 1: questions such as how many people's incomes would you have
Speaker 1: to double in the poorest parts of the world in
Speaker 1: order to forego saving someone's life, Because that's the real
Speaker 1: choice if you're really obsessed with maximizing impact that you
Speaker 1: have to make when you're choosing where to send money
Speaker 1: and where not to. Is maximizing impact? Though? Is that
Speaker 1: always the best guide to the best charity? I ask
Speaker 1: because I've had a lot of involvements with organizations and
Speaker 1: NGOs and charities that are linked to problems of democracy
Speaker 1: and governance as a board member and in other ways,
Speaker 1: and of course these are subjects that don't lend themselves
Speaker 1: at all to measures of cost effectiveness. You know, you
Speaker 1: can invest for many decades in democracy in a particular
Speaker 1: country and see no results until suddenly you do what
Speaker 1: makes you think that there's always going to be a
Speaker 1: numerical value on giving or how do you know that
Speaker 1: that's the best way to really improve life? I think
Speaker 1: it's a really challenging and fundamental question. We started with
Speaker 1: a subset of things one can do that we're highly measurable,
Speaker 1: and I think that's valuable because there's a real opportunity
Speaker 1: cost of those dollars we live in a world in
Speaker 1: which there are really cost effective, proven ways to save
Speaker 1: the lives of kids that are dying, and at least
Speaker 1: as a benchmark, we should be able to say, you know,
Speaker 1: you could spend ten million dollars distributing antimlarial bednets, and
Speaker 1: those ten million dollars are going to protect two to
Speaker 1: four million households from getting malaria and are going to
Speaker 1: save the lives of several thousand people. Now, if you
Speaker 1: want to say let's make a ten million dollar grant
Speaker 1: or a charitable investment in something that builds democracy, I
Speaker 1: think you should really think through what are the assumptions
Speaker 1: that that grant investment is likely to be better than
Speaker 1: letting several thousand kids die that you could otherwise save.
Speaker 1: And so that's not to say that maybe these longer term,
Speaker 1: riskier bets in things like strengthening democratic institutions might be
Speaker 1: better at improving human welfare. I think that's a possibility.
Speaker 1: But our starting point is to say, what are the
Speaker 1: set of things that we know with high degree of
Speaker 1: confidence really improve lives dramatically. And then as we consider
Speaker 1: things that are harder to measure and riskier or have
Speaker 1: longer time horizons at least there's some benchmark to say,
Speaker 1: you know, does it seem plausible that this is going
Speaker 1: to be better than that? And I think that there's
Speaker 1: a whole other set of questions on how do you
Speaker 1: actually effectively evaluate the probability of impact when you're investing
Speaker 1: in things like strengthening democracy and how much capacity is
Speaker 1: there for philanthropic capital to actually affect those things because
Speaker 1: there's such crowded spaces with very powerful other actors. All
Speaker 1: that to say, you know, very intellectually open to the
Speaker 1: possibility that there are things like that that are very
Speaker 1: hard to measure and don't lend themselves to this approach
Speaker 1: that could be extremely effective, but would start from the
Speaker 1: position of skepticism and trying to do that mental exercise
Speaker 1: of do we actually plausibly think that this could be
Speaker 1: better than you know, saving lives of thousands of people
Speaker 1: that we know how to do extremely cost effectively, And
Speaker 1: how do you know that the investments you make have
Speaker 1: a long term impact. You know, if you can save
Speaker 1: somebody's life, obviously that's a that's a plus, But how
Speaker 1: do you make sure that the money you've invested Since
Speaker 1: you're thinking along those lines, not that I necessarily would,
Speaker 1: but that is what you do. How do you know
Speaker 1: that it will pay off in the long term and
Speaker 1: not just in the short term. Within the set of
Speaker 1: things that give all recommends, there are life saving programs
Speaker 1: and income or consumption improving programs. Under the life saving programs, generally,
Speaker 1: if you get past the stage of infant mortality, then
Speaker 1: people will go on to live full lives. So right there,
Speaker 1: what we're talking about is averting a death that generally
Speaker 1: going to translate into sixty years of someone's life, sixty
Speaker 1: to seventy years of someone's life. Then there's things that
Speaker 1: we don't even include in our cost effective estimates, which
Speaker 1: is all the more fuzzy economic evidence that if people have,
Speaker 1: if they're lower infant mortality rates, longer life expectancy, then
Speaker 1: that contributes to long term economic growth and stability of
Speaker 1: a country. We're not even incorporating any of those potential benefits.
Speaker 1: But obviously if you look at global development over the
Speaker 1: last fifty to seventy years, you do see this correlation
Speaker 1: between improvements in health and longevity and general improvements in
Speaker 1: the stability incomes of a society. And so you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of complexity around whether that's correlation or causation,
Speaker 1: but those are the types of long term effects that
Speaker 1: you could see even beyond just the additional sixty years
Speaker 1: of life. Then on the income improving charities that we
Speaker 1: invest in, one is providing deworming pills, so it's just
Speaker 1: a couple cents to deworm kids of parasitic infections, and
Speaker 1: based on one large randomized trial, we find is that
Speaker 1: twenty years later, if you spend one hundred dollars to
Speaker 1: deworm one hundred kids, so very cheap to deworm the
Speaker 1: kids that that cohort of children have an increase in
Speaker 1: their consumption of over a thousand dollars twenty years later.
Speaker 1: And so there are these long term effects on consumption
Speaker 1: and material while being for some of the programs, but overall,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we are focused on saying that
Speaker 1: that improvement of life of an individual that lasts their
Speaker 1: whole life, you know, dying before five versus living till sixty,
Speaker 1: is really substantial and meaningful, and that any other benefits
Speaker 1: beyond that, you know, is almost gravy because it's so
Speaker 1: cost effective to just do that core thing of saving
Speaker 1: the life and letting someone live. Obviously, by definition, it's
Speaker 1: easier to do cost effective charity in poorer countries because
Speaker 1: less money is needed to make a bigger difference. Doesn't
Speaker 1: this mean that you're leaving out people in wealthy countries.
Speaker 1: We have now in the United States people who are
Speaker 1: going hungry because of the COVID pandemic. You know, people
Speaker 1: who live lives of great misery. But it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like your charity would be directed at them. You know,
Speaker 1: are two philosophical starting points are one, all human lives
Speaker 1: have equal value, regardless of where they're born. And the
Speaker 1: second is how do we improve as many of those
Speaker 1: lives as possible with the set amount of money. With
Speaker 1: those philosophical starting points, it does mean that the vast
Speaker 1: majority and currently all of our work is focused on
Speaker 1: the poorest parts of the world because that allows us
Speaker 1: to improve the lives of as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: And we don't draw moral distinctions between someone here at
Speaker 1: home and a person living ten thousand miles away. And
Speaker 1: I think one important thing to emphasize is there are
Speaker 1: definitely worthy causes, and there's suffering here in the US
Speaker 1: and in other high income countries. But if you just
Speaker 1: look at the scale of the suffering, it is very different.
Speaker 1: The average median person in the Democratic Republic Congo lives
Speaker 1: on a few dollars a day, and even the lowest
Speaker 1: income people in the United States have ten twenty thirty
Speaker 1: times as much consumption and material well being as that.
Speaker 1: And that's not to downplay how important causes are here.
Speaker 1: But if you truly believe that all have equal value
Speaker 1: and you're trying to do as much good as possible
Speaker 1: per dollar, I do think that leads you, and it
Speaker 1: leads us to focus on the lowest income parts of
Speaker 1: the world, because you know, we think we can improve
Speaker 1: more people's lives by a larger amount. How do you
Speaker 1: identify the charities that you give to? I mean, do
Speaker 1: charities apply to you, do they present their programs or
Speaker 1: do you go out and look for look at what
Speaker 1: people are doing and then evaluate their work. So our
Speaker 1: team of researchers are going through all the public health journals,
Speaker 1: economics journals, trying to find the latest studies and then
Speaker 1: doing intensive due diligence with the actual organizations that would
Speaker 1: be delivering programs that have some evidence of effectiveness on
Speaker 1: them based on what's been published in literature. So it
Speaker 1: is us going out into the world trying to find
Speaker 1: the best giving opportunities through a mix of looking at
Speaker 1: research as well as talking to practitioners in the field.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a lot of the programs that you
Speaker 1: fund are directly connected to measurable things like health and consumption.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine this applying to other areas of charity.
Speaker 1: I think it extends to far more areas of charity
Speaker 1: than one would think. So you think about highly measurable
Speaker 1: randomized trials, you might think health, but as you said,
Speaker 1: applies to consumption programs such as straight cash transfers to
Speaker 1: the poorest households on Earth. You could also apply it
Speaker 1: to things like education. If you're trying to get more
Speaker 1: girls into school in rural India, you could test a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different interventions to do that. You could
Speaker 1: do it for programs that might improve the well being
Speaker 1: of subsistence farmers. You know, do new seed varieties work,
Speaker 1: do new farming techniques work? And so it extends to
Speaker 1: many things. And I think that's one of the big
Speaker 1: revolutions in charity is the idea that you can measure
Speaker 1: a lot more than we previously thought that having been said,
Speaker 1: I do think there are a number of areas where
Speaker 1: this approach just doesn't work. So, you know, you can't
Speaker 1: have directly measurable effects on really basic science research, R
Speaker 1: and D technology, perhaps parts of the arts, strengthening the media.
Speaker 1: So there's certainly a wide range of things that might
Speaker 1: not be amenable to this type of measurement approach. But
Speaker 1: I think there's a surprising amount that actually is. Has
Speaker 1: the global pandemic shifted your recommendations for giving this year
Speaker 1: and do you think it will for next year? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we took a hard look at COVID and whether
Speaker 1: there are any highly cost effective giving opportunities that we
Speaker 1: could identify, and so there were a number of grants
Speaker 1: that we may initially in COVID, primarily supporting developing low
Speaker 1: income country governments in their COVID response. But I think
Speaker 1: we realized two things. One is that a lot of
Speaker 1: these drivers of death that are preventable by very cost
Speaker 1: effective programs still needed to be delivered during COVID, and
Speaker 1: that was much more challenging and potentially going to be
Speaker 1: underfunded because of the global focus on COVID, And so
Speaker 1: we made the strategic decision to really focus on the
Speaker 1: programs that we knew were cost effective and would continue
Speaker 1: to need to be delivered during COVID otherwise you could
Speaker 1: see a big increase in debts from causes like malaria
Speaker 1: or vitamin A deficiency related debts, and so it's something
Speaker 1: that we continue to monitor. But it's also something where
Speaker 1: there's a huge influx of cash from governments, multilaterals, pharmaceuticals,
Speaker 1: and so if you think about where's my marginal dollar
Speaker 1: as someone making a philanthropic contribution at the end of
Speaker 1: the year going to be highest, it might not be
Speaker 1: in a place where there are billions of dollars flowing
Speaker 1: in from national governments, multilaterals, and pharmaceuticals. And so you know,
Speaker 1: that's the lens that we're always trying to evaluate on
Speaker 1: is where's your marginal dollar going to be most cost effective?
Speaker 1: Who are the clients for your research? Is it other philanthropies,
Speaker 1: is it big charitable organizations, is it individual donors? Who
Speaker 1: who are you advising? All of our research is fully
Speaker 1: transparent and publicly available and is used by a wide
Speaker 1: range of donors. So we have over fifty thousand give
Speaker 1: well donors that use our recommendations, and that's everything from
Speaker 1: people giving twenty five dollars at the end of the
Speaker 1: year to many people that are giving well over a
Speaker 1: million dollars. And how are you funded? What about your organization?
Speaker 1: How do you do take a percentage of money that's
Speaker 1: given to you? How does that work? Yeah, we take
Speaker 1: zero fees from any of the donations, and in the
Speaker 1: way that any nonprofit would be funded just through donors
Speaker 1: that believe in our mission and their zero fees. What
Speaker 1: are three things that listeners can do right now to
Speaker 1: learn more about smart donating and to make smart donations themselves.
Speaker 1: What do you advise people listening to this program? One
Speaker 1: is to I'd recommend a couple of books. So Peter
Speaker 1: Singers The Life You Can Save or Will McCaskill's Doing
Speaker 1: Good Better are two books by philosophers, but really practical
Speaker 1: around you know, what are our moral obligations to others?
Speaker 1: And how can we do as much good as possible?
Speaker 1: And a third book that i'd recommend is Larissa mcfarquhar's
Speaker 1: Strangers Drowning. You know, she's a writer for The New Yorker.
Speaker 1: Wrote this book about your really incredible people who have
Speaker 1: devoted their lives to basically you know, donating as much
Speaker 1: as possible to the most effective places, and just what's
Speaker 1: going through their own psychology and minds in making that
Speaker 1: shift from living a fairly normal life to fully de
Speaker 1: themselves to improving the lives of others. And then you know,
Speaker 1: obviously going through the Giveball website and reading about this
Speaker 1: kind of research is a third thing that I would recommend.
Speaker 1: Buddy Shaw is the managing director of GiveWell. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our show notes for suggestions he shared
Speaker 1: for ways to learn more about informed giving. There's so
Speaker 1: many worthy causes, especially this year. Next week Unsolvable, we'll
Speaker 1: hear from Rachel Stroher about how regenerative agriculture can help
Speaker 1: solve the problems of climate change and unsustainable extractive farming.
Speaker 1: Solvable is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our show
Speaker 1: is produced by Camille Baptista, Senior Producer, Jocelyn Frank. Catherine
Speaker 1: Girardo is our managing producer, and our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Nia Loebell. Special thanks to Kobe Guildford have their fine
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Carly Migliori and Kenesia Holland. I'm Jacob Weisberg
Speaker 1: would