WEBVTT - Identifying Cost Effective Charities is Solvable 0:00:15.076 --> 0:00:25.036 Bush Kid, This is solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. At our core, 0:00:25.196 --> 0:00:27.356 what we're trying to do is improve human wellbeing as 0:00:27.436 --> 0:00:31.316 much as possible. The holidays the season for charity, the 0:00:31.316 --> 0:00:33.796 time when we give away money to the causes we 0:00:33.836 --> 0:00:36.796 care about and to help people who are suffering. But 0:00:36.916 --> 0:00:39.316 how do we make our decisions about where to give? 0:00:40.036 --> 0:00:41.876 For many of us, it's just a matter of habit 0:00:41.996 --> 0:00:46.076 or responding to solicitations or the disaster or crisis that 0:00:46.156 --> 0:00:49.196 seems the most present. But should we be thinking about 0:00:49.236 --> 0:00:53.076 the effectiveness of our giving, how much suffering can be alleviated, 0:00:53.236 --> 0:00:57.036 how many lives saved for the same donated dollar. We 0:00:57.116 --> 0:01:01.036 live in a world in which there are really cost effective, 0:01:01.156 --> 0:01:04.476 proven ways to save the lives of kids that are dying, 0:01:04.996 --> 0:01:07.436 and at least as a benchmark, we should be able 0:01:07.436 --> 0:01:10.516 to say, you know, you could and ten million dollars 0:01:10.516 --> 0:01:13.916 distributing anti malarial bednets, and those ten million dollars are 0:01:13.956 --> 0:01:16.916 going to protect two to four million households from getting 0:01:16.916 --> 0:01:19.276 malaria and are going to save the lives of several 0:01:19.316 --> 0:01:22.836 thousand people. It sounds like a lot of the programs 0:01:22.836 --> 0:01:26.556 that you fond are directly connected to measurable things like 0:01:27.156 --> 0:01:31.196 health and consumption. Can you imagine this applying to other 0:01:31.276 --> 0:01:34.556 areas of charity. I think it extends to far more 0:01:34.596 --> 0:01:37.556 areas of charity than one would think. Buddy Shaws the 0:01:37.596 --> 0:01:41.636 managing director of give Well, an organization that researches the 0:01:41.716 --> 0:01:45.676 impact of giving across a variety of causes and makes 0:01:45.756 --> 0:01:50.036 recommendations for where and how to give. My solvable is 0:01:50.076 --> 0:01:53.996 helping people identify charities that do the most good per 0:01:53.996 --> 0:01:57.436 dollar spent. My co host an Apple Bomb, spoke with 0:01:57.516 --> 0:02:01.116 Buddy about the importance of giving and how his organization 0:02:01.236 --> 0:02:06.156 evaluates the many worthy causes out there. Here's their conversation. 0:02:06.796 --> 0:02:10.036 Thinking back to when you were a child young adult, 0:02:10.636 --> 0:02:14.676 what's your earliest memory of donating money to a charitable cause? 0:02:15.276 --> 0:02:17.796 Actually growing up? You know, I grew up in rural, 0:02:18.596 --> 0:02:21.876 small town Pennsylvania, but we would go to visit my 0:02:21.956 --> 0:02:25.396 family in East Africa and India fairly regularly, and so 0:02:25.436 --> 0:02:28.956 probably the earliest memory I have of donating money or 0:02:28.996 --> 0:02:33.556 doing something that's charitable is going with my grandfather in 0:02:33.556 --> 0:02:37.396 a rural part of western India and serving food at 0:02:37.436 --> 0:02:41.916 a school for death and mute children. And did your 0:02:41.916 --> 0:02:45.116 family talk about charity. Was there a conversation at home 0:02:45.116 --> 0:02:48.236 about it as well? There were conversations about I think 0:02:48.276 --> 0:02:53.676 social justice, not charity so narrowly, but definitely that you know, 0:02:53.716 --> 0:02:56.636 we're very fortunate to be living comfortable, upper middle class 0:02:56.636 --> 0:03:00.516 lives in the United States. I remember reading John Rawls 0:03:00.516 --> 0:03:03.356 The Theory of Justice my freshman year of college, where 0:03:03.356 --> 0:03:07.276 he talks about our moral standing in this world, or 0:03:07.356 --> 0:03:10.356 what we actually have access to is an accident of birth. 0:03:10.636 --> 0:03:12.836 And when I was reading that, basically it brought me 0:03:12.876 --> 0:03:16.716 back to those memories visiting family in Africa and India 0:03:16.836 --> 0:03:19.156 and recognizing that the fact that I was born in 0:03:19.196 --> 0:03:22.716 the US meant that I had far more opportunities than 0:03:23.476 --> 0:03:26.156 even my relatives and other people that I would regularly 0:03:26.196 --> 0:03:28.836 interact with on those trips. And there seemed to be 0:03:28.916 --> 0:03:32.236 something that was fundamentally morally unjust about the fact that 0:03:32.316 --> 0:03:34.996 I had a much better shot at leaving a full 0:03:35.036 --> 0:03:38.356 and meaningful life than those people did simply by virtue 0:03:38.356 --> 0:03:41.716 of where I happened to be born. Still, give will 0:03:41.916 --> 0:03:46.196 is something more specific than the kind of charity you 0:03:46.236 --> 0:03:49.276 were used to growing up. First of all, maybe you 0:03:49.276 --> 0:03:51.076 could tell us a little bit about what it does 0:03:51.196 --> 0:03:54.676 what's the aim of give will, Yeah, so GiveWell. Really, 0:03:54.676 --> 0:03:57.476 what we're about is trying to find the charities that 0:03:57.636 --> 0:04:01.876 save or improve lives most cost effectively. Essentially, what we're 0:04:01.876 --> 0:04:06.916 looking for our programs that have strong evidence of effectiveness, 0:04:07.356 --> 0:04:09.756 that what they're intending to do is actually leading to 0:04:09.796 --> 0:04:13.476 improvements in people's lives. But beyond the evidence of effectiveness 0:04:13.516 --> 0:04:15.836 is that they're extremely cost effective, that they do that 0:04:16.036 --> 0:04:20.356 with as little money as possible. Two examples are one 0:04:20.556 --> 0:04:24.916 in global malaria, so hundreds of thousands of kids die 0:04:25.036 --> 0:04:28.276 every year simply because they don't have access to a 0:04:28.356 --> 0:04:34.156 five dollars anti malarial bednet or other malaria preventive treatments, 0:04:34.316 --> 0:04:39.396 and give Well essentially as found through rigorous research that 0:04:39.476 --> 0:04:42.036 the academic literature shows that if you can get an 0:04:42.036 --> 0:04:46.356 anti malarial bednet into the hands of a family, if 0:04:46.356 --> 0:04:48.756 they hang it up properly and sleep under it, that 0:04:48.756 --> 0:04:51.996 that's extremely cost effective at saving lives. And then we 0:04:52.116 --> 0:04:54.876 do the work to make sure that we find organizations 0:04:54.876 --> 0:04:56.916 that are able to do that as cost effectively as 0:04:56.956 --> 0:05:01.316 possible and that have more capacity to absorb funding and 0:05:01.356 --> 0:05:04.756 deliver those programs. And so based on all of that research, 0:05:05.076 --> 0:05:08.516 we make recommendations to anyone looking to make a charitable 0:05:08.556 --> 0:05:11.356 donation so that their money goes as far as possible. 0:05:12.116 --> 0:05:16.276 And how do you measure effectiveness? Is it to do 0:05:16.356 --> 0:05:19.076 with length of life? Is it to do with you know, 0:05:19.236 --> 0:05:21.916 the amount of food people have, is its standard of living? 0:05:21.996 --> 0:05:26.556 What is your ruler that you're using. Yeah, so this 0:05:26.636 --> 0:05:29.876 is a really hard question because you know, at our core, 0:05:30.076 --> 0:05:32.196 what we're trying to do is improve human wellbeing as 0:05:32.276 --> 0:05:35.956 much as possible, and so we're actually agnostic on the 0:05:36.076 --> 0:05:41.156 actual cause, whether that's improving incomes or lives or education. 0:05:42.196 --> 0:05:45.636 But obviously if you're choosing between a bunch of different charities, 0:05:45.796 --> 0:05:48.476 you're forced to make these very challenging trade offs. And 0:05:48.516 --> 0:05:51.876 so where Gibbill is currently focused is on programs that 0:05:51.996 --> 0:05:56.556 save lives or programs that improve people's consumption or material 0:05:56.636 --> 0:05:59.996 well being. Last year, we directed over one hundred and 0:06:00.036 --> 0:06:02.916 fifty million dollars, and the question is how much of 0:06:02.916 --> 0:06:05.596 that money should go to programs that save people's lives 0:06:05.916 --> 0:06:07.796 versus how much of that money should go to prove 0:06:07.836 --> 0:06:12.436 in cost effective ways that improve incomes. And that forces 0:06:12.516 --> 0:06:16.236 us to make very challenging moral trade offs and ask 0:06:16.356 --> 0:06:20.956 questions such as how many people's incomes would you have 0:06:21.036 --> 0:06:23.516 to double in the poorest parts of the world in 0:06:23.636 --> 0:06:26.596 order to forego saving someone's life, Because that's the real 0:06:26.716 --> 0:06:30.116 choice if you're really obsessed with maximizing impact that you 0:06:30.196 --> 0:06:32.596 have to make when you're choosing where to send money 0:06:32.636 --> 0:06:37.516 and where not to. Is maximizing impact? Though? Is that 0:06:38.516 --> 0:06:42.036 always the best guide to the best charity? I ask 0:06:42.116 --> 0:06:45.116 because I've had a lot of involvements with organizations and 0:06:45.396 --> 0:06:49.596 NGOs and charities that are linked to problems of democracy 0:06:49.636 --> 0:06:52.476 and governance as a board member and in other ways, 0:06:52.956 --> 0:06:56.076 and of course these are subjects that don't lend themselves 0:06:56.116 --> 0:06:58.516 at all to measures of cost effectiveness. You know, you 0:06:58.556 --> 0:07:02.836 can invest for many decades in democracy in a particular 0:07:02.836 --> 0:07:06.436 country and see no results until suddenly you do what 0:07:06.596 --> 0:07:08.156 makes you think that there's always going to be a 0:07:08.236 --> 0:07:11.596 numerical value on giving or how do you know that 0:07:11.596 --> 0:07:14.636 that's the best way to really improve life? I think 0:07:14.676 --> 0:07:19.436 it's a really challenging and fundamental question. We started with 0:07:19.596 --> 0:07:23.556 a subset of things one can do that we're highly measurable, 0:07:23.996 --> 0:07:27.076 and I think that's valuable because there's a real opportunity 0:07:27.116 --> 0:07:29.356 cost of those dollars we live in a world in 0:07:29.396 --> 0:07:34.156 which there are really cost effective, proven ways to save 0:07:34.196 --> 0:07:36.956 the lives of kids that are dying, and at least 0:07:36.996 --> 0:07:39.796 as a benchmark, we should be able to say, you know, 0:07:39.916 --> 0:07:44.116 you could spend ten million dollars distributing antimlarial bednets, and 0:07:44.156 --> 0:07:46.116 those ten million dollars are going to protect two to 0:07:46.196 --> 0:07:49.396 four million households from getting malaria and are going to 0:07:49.476 --> 0:07:52.156 save the lives of several thousand people. Now, if you 0:07:52.196 --> 0:07:55.036 want to say let's make a ten million dollar grant 0:07:55.596 --> 0:07:59.076 or a charitable investment in something that builds democracy, I 0:07:59.116 --> 0:08:02.556 think you should really think through what are the assumptions 0:08:02.596 --> 0:08:06.116 that that grant investment is likely to be better than 0:08:06.196 --> 0:08:09.396 letting several thousand kids die that you could otherwise save. 0:08:09.796 --> 0:08:12.996 And so that's not to say that maybe these longer term, 0:08:13.236 --> 0:08:18.236 riskier bets in things like strengthening democratic institutions might be 0:08:18.236 --> 0:08:21.636 better at improving human welfare. I think that's a possibility. 0:08:21.956 --> 0:08:24.516 But our starting point is to say, what are the 0:08:24.556 --> 0:08:26.716 set of things that we know with high degree of 0:08:26.756 --> 0:08:32.276 confidence really improve lives dramatically. And then as we consider 0:08:32.356 --> 0:08:35.596 things that are harder to measure and riskier or have 0:08:35.716 --> 0:08:38.796 longer time horizons at least there's some benchmark to say, 0:08:39.236 --> 0:08:41.236 you know, does it seem plausible that this is going 0:08:41.276 --> 0:08:44.276 to be better than that? And I think that there's 0:08:44.316 --> 0:08:46.316 a whole other set of questions on how do you 0:08:46.356 --> 0:08:50.476 actually effectively evaluate the probability of impact when you're investing 0:08:50.476 --> 0:08:54.156 in things like strengthening democracy and how much capacity is 0:08:54.156 --> 0:08:57.916 there for philanthropic capital to actually affect those things because 0:08:58.316 --> 0:09:02.516 there's such crowded spaces with very powerful other actors. All 0:09:02.556 --> 0:09:04.676 that to say, you know, very intellectually open to the 0:09:04.676 --> 0:09:07.596 possibility that there are things like that that are very 0:09:07.636 --> 0:09:10.556 hard to measure and don't lend themselves to this approach 0:09:10.636 --> 0:09:13.836 that could be extremely effective, but would start from the 0:09:13.916 --> 0:09:17.836 position of skepticism and trying to do that mental exercise 0:09:17.916 --> 0:09:20.596 of do we actually plausibly think that this could be 0:09:20.596 --> 0:09:24.156 better than you know, saving lives of thousands of people 0:09:24.596 --> 0:09:28.156 that we know how to do extremely cost effectively, And 0:09:28.236 --> 0:09:30.476 how do you know that the investments you make have 0:09:30.596 --> 0:09:33.356 a long term impact. You know, if you can save 0:09:33.396 --> 0:09:37.716 somebody's life, obviously that's a that's a plus, But how 0:09:37.716 --> 0:09:39.916 do you make sure that the money you've invested Since 0:09:39.916 --> 0:09:43.116 you're thinking along those lines, not that I necessarily would, 0:09:43.196 --> 0:09:46.076 but that is what you do. How do you know 0:09:46.156 --> 0:09:47.796 that it will pay off in the long term and 0:09:47.836 --> 0:09:50.956 not just in the short term. Within the set of 0:09:50.996 --> 0:09:54.396 things that give all recommends, there are life saving programs 0:09:54.596 --> 0:09:59.676 and income or consumption improving programs. Under the life saving programs, generally, 0:09:59.676 --> 0:10:03.436 if you get past the stage of infant mortality, then 0:10:03.476 --> 0:10:06.276 people will go on to live full lives. So right there, 0:10:06.356 --> 0:10:09.116 what we're talking about is averting a death that generally 0:10:09.236 --> 0:10:13.276 going to translate into sixty years of someone's life, sixty 0:10:13.316 --> 0:10:16.756 to seventy years of someone's life. Then there's things that 0:10:16.796 --> 0:10:19.756 we don't even include in our cost effective estimates, which 0:10:19.796 --> 0:10:25.836 is all the more fuzzy economic evidence that if people have, 0:10:25.956 --> 0:10:30.796 if they're lower infant mortality rates, longer life expectancy, then 0:10:30.876 --> 0:10:33.956 that contributes to long term economic growth and stability of 0:10:33.956 --> 0:10:37.636 a country. We're not even incorporating any of those potential benefits. 0:10:37.916 --> 0:10:40.276 But obviously if you look at global development over the 0:10:40.316 --> 0:10:43.716 last fifty to seventy years, you do see this correlation 0:10:43.836 --> 0:10:49.036 between improvements in health and longevity and general improvements in 0:10:49.076 --> 0:10:52.916 the stability incomes of a society. And so you know, 0:10:53.316 --> 0:10:56.076 there's a lot of complexity around whether that's correlation or causation, 0:10:56.796 --> 0:10:58.676 but those are the types of long term effects that 0:10:58.676 --> 0:11:01.156 you could see even beyond just the additional sixty years 0:11:01.156 --> 0:11:05.076 of life. Then on the income improving charities that we 0:11:05.156 --> 0:11:08.916 invest in, one is providing deworming pills, so it's just 0:11:08.916 --> 0:11:12.316 a couple cents to deworm kids of parasitic infections, and 0:11:12.476 --> 0:11:15.996 based on one large randomized trial, we find is that 0:11:16.116 --> 0:11:19.076 twenty years later, if you spend one hundred dollars to 0:11:19.116 --> 0:11:21.516 deworm one hundred kids, so very cheap to deworm the 0:11:21.596 --> 0:11:25.356 kids that that cohort of children have an increase in 0:11:25.396 --> 0:11:29.036 their consumption of over a thousand dollars twenty years later. 0:11:29.436 --> 0:11:32.676 And so there are these long term effects on consumption 0:11:32.676 --> 0:11:36.316 and material while being for some of the programs, but overall, 0:11:36.396 --> 0:11:39.396 you know, I think we are focused on saying that 0:11:39.396 --> 0:11:43.036 that improvement of life of an individual that lasts their 0:11:43.036 --> 0:11:46.436 whole life, you know, dying before five versus living till sixty, 0:11:47.396 --> 0:11:50.676 is really substantial and meaningful, and that any other benefits 0:11:50.716 --> 0:11:54.796 beyond that, you know, is almost gravy because it's so 0:11:54.796 --> 0:11:57.476 cost effective to just do that core thing of saving 0:11:57.476 --> 0:12:02.556 the life and letting someone live. Obviously, by definition, it's 0:12:02.596 --> 0:12:06.636 easier to do cost effective charity in poorer countries because 0:12:06.756 --> 0:12:09.796 less money is needed to make a bigger difference. Doesn't 0:12:09.796 --> 0:12:12.996 this mean that you're leaving out people in wealthy countries. 0:12:13.036 --> 0:12:15.796 We have now in the United States people who are 0:12:15.836 --> 0:12:19.036 going hungry because of the COVID pandemic. You know, people 0:12:19.036 --> 0:12:21.996 who live lives of great misery. But it doesn't sound 0:12:22.036 --> 0:12:25.396 like your charity would be directed at them. You know, 0:12:25.396 --> 0:12:29.156 are two philosophical starting points are one, all human lives 0:12:29.196 --> 0:12:32.596 have equal value, regardless of where they're born. And the 0:12:32.636 --> 0:12:34.796 second is how do we improve as many of those 0:12:34.836 --> 0:12:37.436 lives as possible with the set amount of money. With 0:12:37.596 --> 0:12:41.396 those philosophical starting points, it does mean that the vast 0:12:41.436 --> 0:12:44.876 majority and currently all of our work is focused on 0:12:45.436 --> 0:12:48.196 the poorest parts of the world because that allows us 0:12:48.196 --> 0:12:50.476 to improve the lives of as many people as possible. 0:12:50.516 --> 0:12:54.276 And we don't draw moral distinctions between someone here at 0:12:54.316 --> 0:12:57.956 home and a person living ten thousand miles away. And 0:12:57.996 --> 0:13:01.036 I think one important thing to emphasize is there are 0:13:01.076 --> 0:13:05.196 definitely worthy causes, and there's suffering here in the US 0:13:05.236 --> 0:13:07.556 and in other high income countries. But if you just 0:13:07.676 --> 0:13:11.316 look at the scale of the suffering, it is very different. 0:13:11.516 --> 0:13:15.836 The average median person in the Democratic Republic Congo lives 0:13:15.916 --> 0:13:19.316 on a few dollars a day, and even the lowest 0:13:19.356 --> 0:13:23.196 income people in the United States have ten twenty thirty 0:13:23.236 --> 0:13:26.716 times as much consumption and material well being as that. 0:13:26.956 --> 0:13:30.716 And that's not to downplay how important causes are here. 0:13:30.916 --> 0:13:33.596 But if you truly believe that all have equal value 0:13:33.596 --> 0:13:35.396 and you're trying to do as much good as possible 0:13:35.436 --> 0:13:38.276 per dollar, I do think that leads you, and it 0:13:38.396 --> 0:13:41.076 leads us to focus on the lowest income parts of 0:13:41.116 --> 0:13:43.076 the world, because you know, we think we can improve 0:13:43.596 --> 0:13:47.796 more people's lives by a larger amount. How do you 0:13:47.876 --> 0:13:50.436 identify the charities that you give to? I mean, do 0:13:50.556 --> 0:13:53.356 charities apply to you, do they present their programs or 0:13:53.396 --> 0:13:55.836 do you go out and look for look at what 0:13:55.876 --> 0:13:59.036 people are doing and then evaluate their work. So our 0:13:59.076 --> 0:14:02.916 team of researchers are going through all the public health journals, 0:14:02.956 --> 0:14:06.956 economics journals, trying to find the latest studies and then 0:14:06.996 --> 0:14:10.836 doing intensive due diligence with the actual organizations that would 0:14:10.836 --> 0:14:14.956 be delivering programs that have some evidence of effectiveness on 0:14:14.996 --> 0:14:17.836 them based on what's been published in literature. So it 0:14:17.916 --> 0:14:19.956 is us going out into the world trying to find 0:14:20.196 --> 0:14:22.876 the best giving opportunities through a mix of looking at 0:14:23.796 --> 0:14:27.276 research as well as talking to practitioners in the field. 0:14:28.236 --> 0:14:30.476 It sounds like a lot of the programs that you 0:14:30.596 --> 0:14:35.756 fund are directly connected to measurable things like health and consumption. 0:14:36.996 --> 0:14:40.396 Can you imagine this applying to other areas of charity. 0:14:41.636 --> 0:14:43.996 I think it extends to far more areas of charity 0:14:44.036 --> 0:14:46.996 than one would think. So you think about highly measurable 0:14:47.116 --> 0:14:50.076 randomized trials, you might think health, but as you said, 0:14:50.356 --> 0:14:55.036 applies to consumption programs such as straight cash transfers to 0:14:55.076 --> 0:14:57.676 the poorest households on Earth. You could also apply it 0:14:57.716 --> 0:15:00.476 to things like education. If you're trying to get more 0:15:00.556 --> 0:15:03.996 girls into school in rural India, you could test a 0:15:03.996 --> 0:15:06.516 whole bunch of different interventions to do that. You could 0:15:06.516 --> 0:15:10.076 do it for programs that might improve the well being 0:15:10.076 --> 0:15:13.196 of subsistence farmers. You know, do new seed varieties work, 0:15:13.396 --> 0:15:16.276 do new farming techniques work? And so it extends to 0:15:16.396 --> 0:15:18.436 many things. And I think that's one of the big 0:15:18.436 --> 0:15:20.796 revolutions in charity is the idea that you can measure 0:15:21.076 --> 0:15:24.276 a lot more than we previously thought that having been said, 0:15:24.396 --> 0:15:26.516 I do think there are a number of areas where 0:15:26.716 --> 0:15:30.516 this approach just doesn't work. So, you know, you can't 0:15:30.596 --> 0:15:35.876 have directly measurable effects on really basic science research, R 0:15:35.916 --> 0:15:40.516 and D technology, perhaps parts of the arts, strengthening the media. 0:15:40.596 --> 0:15:43.996 So there's certainly a wide range of things that might 0:15:44.076 --> 0:15:48.116 not be amenable to this type of measurement approach. But 0:15:48.196 --> 0:15:52.156 I think there's a surprising amount that actually is. Has 0:15:52.196 --> 0:15:56.356 the global pandemic shifted your recommendations for giving this year 0:15:56.396 --> 0:15:59.196 and do you think it will for next year? Yeah, 0:15:59.196 --> 0:16:02.956 So we took a hard look at COVID and whether 0:16:02.956 --> 0:16:05.756 there are any highly cost effective giving opportunities that we 0:16:05.836 --> 0:16:08.796 could identify, and so there were a number of grants 0:16:08.796 --> 0:16:13.356 that we may initially in COVID, primarily supporting developing low 0:16:13.356 --> 0:16:16.836 income country governments in their COVID response. But I think 0:16:16.836 --> 0:16:19.716 we realized two things. One is that a lot of 0:16:19.756 --> 0:16:23.716 these drivers of death that are preventable by very cost 0:16:23.716 --> 0:16:27.636 effective programs still needed to be delivered during COVID, and 0:16:27.796 --> 0:16:30.236 that was much more challenging and potentially going to be 0:16:30.356 --> 0:16:33.636 underfunded because of the global focus on COVID, And so 0:16:33.676 --> 0:16:36.676 we made the strategic decision to really focus on the 0:16:36.676 --> 0:16:39.956 programs that we knew were cost effective and would continue 0:16:39.956 --> 0:16:42.956 to need to be delivered during COVID otherwise you could 0:16:42.956 --> 0:16:46.756 see a big increase in debts from causes like malaria 0:16:46.916 --> 0:16:50.076 or vitamin A deficiency related debts, and so it's something 0:16:50.076 --> 0:16:54.036 that we continue to monitor. But it's also something where 0:16:54.076 --> 0:16:59.196 there's a huge influx of cash from governments, multilaterals, pharmaceuticals, 0:16:59.476 --> 0:17:03.156 and so if you think about where's my marginal dollar 0:17:03.756 --> 0:17:06.396 as someone making a philanthropic contribution at the end of 0:17:06.396 --> 0:17:08.716 the year going to be highest, it might not be 0:17:08.756 --> 0:17:11.476 in a place where there are billions of dollars flowing 0:17:11.516 --> 0:17:16.196 in from national governments, multilaterals, and pharmaceuticals. And so you know, 0:17:16.316 --> 0:17:18.276 that's the lens that we're always trying to evaluate on 0:17:18.396 --> 0:17:21.276 is where's your marginal dollar going to be most cost effective? 0:17:22.676 --> 0:17:26.476 Who are the clients for your research? Is it other philanthropies, 0:17:26.636 --> 0:17:30.356 is it big charitable organizations, is it individual donors? Who 0:17:30.756 --> 0:17:35.116 who are you advising? All of our research is fully 0:17:35.116 --> 0:17:39.316 transparent and publicly available and is used by a wide 0:17:39.396 --> 0:17:43.116 range of donors. So we have over fifty thousand give 0:17:43.116 --> 0:17:46.356 well donors that use our recommendations, and that's everything from 0:17:46.356 --> 0:17:48.796 people giving twenty five dollars at the end of the 0:17:48.876 --> 0:17:51.596 year to many people that are giving well over a 0:17:51.636 --> 0:17:56.156 million dollars. And how are you funded? What about your organization? 0:17:56.716 --> 0:18:00.196 How do you do take a percentage of money that's 0:18:00.196 --> 0:18:02.556 given to you? How does that work? Yeah, we take 0:18:02.796 --> 0:18:06.956 zero fees from any of the donations, and in the 0:18:06.996 --> 0:18:10.556 way that any nonprofit would be funded just through donors 0:18:10.596 --> 0:18:14.316 that believe in our mission and their zero fees. What 0:18:14.436 --> 0:18:18.036 are three things that listeners can do right now to 0:18:18.156 --> 0:18:21.916 learn more about smart donating and to make smart donations themselves. 0:18:21.956 --> 0:18:24.916 What do you advise people listening to this program? One 0:18:25.036 --> 0:18:28.956 is to I'd recommend a couple of books. So Peter 0:18:29.076 --> 0:18:32.796 Singers The Life You Can Save or Will McCaskill's Doing 0:18:32.836 --> 0:18:37.356 Good Better are two books by philosophers, but really practical 0:18:37.556 --> 0:18:41.676 around you know, what are our moral obligations to others? 0:18:41.716 --> 0:18:43.716 And how can we do as much good as possible? 0:18:44.796 --> 0:18:47.876 And a third book that i'd recommend is Larissa mcfarquhar's 0:18:47.916 --> 0:18:51.436 Strangers Drowning. You know, she's a writer for The New Yorker. 0:18:51.716 --> 0:18:55.916 Wrote this book about your really incredible people who have 0:18:56.476 --> 0:19:00.156 devoted their lives to basically you know, donating as much 0:19:00.196 --> 0:19:02.836 as possible to the most effective places, and just what's 0:19:02.836 --> 0:19:05.836 going through their own psychology and minds in making that 0:19:05.916 --> 0:19:08.916 shift from living a fairly normal life to fully de 0:19:09.396 --> 0:19:13.076 themselves to improving the lives of others. And then you know, 0:19:13.116 --> 0:19:16.196 obviously going through the Giveball website and reading about this 0:19:16.276 --> 0:19:19.836 kind of research is a third thing that I would recommend. 0:19:22.636 --> 0:19:25.916 Buddy Shaw is the managing director of GiveWell. Be sure 0:19:25.956 --> 0:19:28.596 to check out our show notes for suggestions he shared 0:19:28.716 --> 0:19:31.916 for ways to learn more about informed giving. There's so 0:19:31.956 --> 0:19:36.916 many worthy causes, especially this year. Next week Unsolvable, we'll 0:19:36.916 --> 0:19:41.996 hear from Rachel Stroher about how regenerative agriculture can help 0:19:42.036 --> 0:19:46.676 solve the problems of climate change and unsustainable extractive farming. 0:19:47.836 --> 0:19:50.716 Solvable is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our show 0:19:50.796 --> 0:19:55.796 is produced by Camille Baptista, Senior Producer, Jocelyn Frank. Catherine 0:19:55.796 --> 0:19:59.316 Girardo is our managing producer, and our executive producer is 0:19:59.436 --> 0:20:03.436 Nia Loebell. Special thanks to Kobe Guildford have their fine 0:20:03.596 --> 0:20:08.116 Eric Sandler, Carly Migliori and Kenesia Holland. I'm Jacob Weisberg 0:20:09.156 --> 0:20:09.476 would