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 Jump to Navigation GiveWell Giving Effectively Giving 101 Your Donation Can Change Someone's Life The Wrong Donation Can Accomplish Nothing Your Dollar Goes Further Overseas Your Dollar Goes Further When You Fund the Right Program Impact Calculator Quick Start Guide How We Work Who We Are Process Criteria Transparency Evaluations of GiveWell Research FAQ Core Competencies Top Charities Malaria Consortium Against Malaria Foundation Helen Keller International SCI Foundation Sightsavers New Incentives Deworm the World Initiative The END Fund GiveDirectly Standout Charities Research Charity Site Visits Notes from Research Conversations Intervention Reports Cost-Effectiveness Analyses Other Charity Reviews GiveWell Incubation Grants Our Mistakes About About GiveWell Progress to Date Our Story Our People Official Records Reputation Impact Frequently Asked Questions Donate Contact Us Jobs Updates Blog RSS Feeds Stay Updated Enter search terms here. This search returns results from both GiveWell's main site and from the GiveWell Blog. Search form Search Donate Donate You are here Home Home We search for the charities that save or improve lives the most per dollar. We produce the world's top research on charities. Free, for everyone. We recommend a small number of charities that do an incredible amount of good. Explore top charities Photo credit: Mo Scarpelli/The END Fund The gold standard for giving. How we maximize your gift's impact: 1 GiveWell shares the top charities we've found for saving and improving lives. 2 You choose the top charity (or charities) you prefer, or have GiveWell direct your donation where it will help the most. 3 GiveWell takes no fees and sends your donation to the organization(s) you choose. 4 Your donation makes a meaningful difference for some of the poorest people in the world. We spend over 20,000 hours annually researching charity. We conduct in-depth evaluations of a few highly effective charities. Our eight top charities do an incredible amount of good. GiveWell is independently supported by donors who give directly to our operations. Our Research Process We extensively research each charity before recommending it. We continue evaluations each year after. Learn about research 1 Independent evidence We look at independent studies of charity programs, such as randomized controlled trials, to understand their effectiveness. 2 Modeling cost-effectiveness We build in-depth models to analyze charities' cost-effectiveness. We refine this throughout our charity evaluation process, based on their budget and monitoring, to estimate impact per dollar spent. 3 Interviews and site visits We conduct extensive interviews with charity staff. We visit charities in the field to see their work on the ground. 4 Budget reviews We review charities' past spending and forecast their future spending, to better understand their track record and expected impact. 5 Charities' data We ask charities to share their data showing how well their programs reach the intended beneficiaries so we can better understand how successful charities' programs have been. 6 Ongoing reviews We continually assess the work, progress, and future plans of our recommended charities. We will remove a charity recommendation if we no longer believe the organization meets our criteria. As seen in More than 50,000 donors i Based on our records of donors who've contributed either to GiveWell or to our recommended charities. — Learn more have trusted GiveWell to direct their donations. Together, they have given over $500 million i Based on our records of the money we've directed to our recommended charities since 2011. — Learn more to the organizations we recommend. These donations will save over 75,000 lives i Based on our cost-effectiveness analysis and our records of money we've directed to our recommended charities since 2011. — Learn more and provide cash grants of over $90 million i Based on our records of money we've directed to GiveDirectly since 2011, and our understanding of how GiveDirectly transfers funds to its very poor recipients. — Learn more to the global poor. Check our work. It's right to ask questions of any charity that promises incredible impact. It's hard to do incredible things. We publish the full details of our analysis so you can fully vet our reasoning. We also share mistakes we've made which are relevant to evaluating our work. Our philosophy on giving Charity Research Reports Our mistakes Why our top charities work in lower-income countries. Helping people in high-income countries is expensive, and the gains can be more marginal. People living in low-income countries face many problems that have ready solutions, such as children dying from malaria or suffering from parasitic worms. Donating internationally is the most cost-effective way to provide lifesaving help. Why we don't recommend charities in every cause area. Learn more Why giving locally doesn't have the same impact. Learn more "For almost a decade I've trusted GiveWell to guide most of my donations. Without them, I couldn't answer the question that matters most to me: How can I do the most good with my limited funds?" - Dan Heath, New York Times bestselling author, former GiveWell board member, and donor since 2010 Frequently Asked Questions What is GiveWell? GiveWell is an independent nonprofit focused on helping people do as much good as possible with their donations. We recommend a short list of top charities that we update annually. All of our research is free and available to the public. Who works at GiveWell? GiveWell was founded by two individuals working in the finance industry in 2007. Our team has grown quite a bit since then! For more, see our story and meet our team . How does GiveWell make money? GiveWell is a nonprofit that is funded by donors who choose to support our mission. We don’t take any fees from donations directed to charities we recommend, nor do we receive any fees from charities for being featured on our site. Will my donation be tax-deductible? GiveWell (a.k.a. The Clear Fund) is a federally-recognized tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization . GiveWell can accept donations on behalf of our recommended charities. U.S. donors can donate to GiveWell for our operations or the support of our recommended charities and take tax deductions to the extent permitted by the law. More information is available here on the tax-deductibility of donations to GiveWell and our recommended charities, including for donors based outside of the U.S. Does GiveWell recommend charities for every cause? We do not. GiveWell's mission is to recommend charities that we believe can save or improve the greatest number of lives per dollar donated. We focus on the areas that we believe are most promising to achieve this aim. This has led us to research and recommend charities working in global health and poverty alleviation because your dollar can go further overseas . Learn More Contact Stay updated FAQ For Charities Site map Privacy Policy Jobs Follow Us: Facebook Twitter RSS Subscribe to email updates: GiveWell, aka The Clear Fund (a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity), was founded in 2007. We serve donors across the Globe; GiveWell's donors are based primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Canada. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share alike 3.0 United States License...