Interview
Two big critiques of GiveWell's charity evaluation + 6 lessons learned | Elie Hassenfeld (2023)
- Aim to expand both research capabilities and overall organizational capacity through targeted recruiting and increased staff to better engage with external critique and local contexts.
- Expect 2022 donation levels to remain approximately stable compared to 2021 despite financial market challenges, with potential growth trajectories reaching $700 million to $900 million annually or stagnation in the coming years.
- Plan to increase direct fundraising efforts to address identified opportunities and expand the outreach team to engage more effectively with large donors.
- Anticipate adjusting the cost-effectiveness threshold upward from six or seven times cash to 10 times as cost effective, reflecting a decline in funds raised relative to prior forecasts.
- Commit to supporting a large randomized control trial on water vouchers to reduce uncertainty in mortality estimates and continue small-scale support for water quality programs.
- Expect to double or triple time spent on water fluorination investigations and utilize data from the Syphilis and Kangaroo Mother Care programs to refine future forecasts and cost-effectiveness assessments.
- Plan to learn from the Miracle Feet program regarding cost per additional child reached and identify malnutrition programs in specific contexts that may achieve 10 times the cost effectiveness of cash, revised from previous 2x estimates.
- Experiment with hiring a dedicated malaria researcher and plan to recruit senior and entry-level researchers to explore economic growth interventions, potentially dedicating a year to this investigation.
- Project that future growth will enable more explicit analysis factors, including options for donors interested in subjective well-being, and clarify the stance on economic growth interventions through research.
- Prepare an operations team with a generalist mindset to support organizational expansion while noting that remote employment outside U.S. time zones may become more difficult due to reduced virtual collaboration.
- Recognize risks of missing on-the-ground realities and potential stagnation in growth, while noting openness to revising current analytical frameworks like the deprivation approach in the future.