It can be quite overwhelming to look for new causes to support, let alone find an organization that happens to be aligned with your morals, missions and general way to approach fundraising. Although for some this is not necessarily a confusing or extensive process, for many, successfully narrowing down a philanthropic organization or charity that suits you can be a daunting task.
Recently, an organization named “GiveWell” is primarily focused on helping individual donors find and give funds to charitable or philanthropic organization that is essentially aligned with their set goals.
GiveWell’s and extensive case studies are also supported by statistics, quantitative data and other qualitative forms of research, making this process far easier for individual donors. According to recent research, individual donors actually give more to charitable causes than other foundations, corporations and companies combined.
Therefore, it is clear that giving or providing individual donors with the appropriate tools is vital for further growing and charitable giving across the country.
GiveWell basically emphasizes a dual focus track as an organization geared towards funding the best, most useful options. Their first goal is to research various programs that would allow victims of extreme poverty or devastating illness to find help in their respective areas.
The second portion of this dual-focus mindset is to then decipher which are the most effective, cost-efficient approaches to the specific issue at hand. Recently, the organization’s most recent research study, they found that providing families or individuals with bed nets is a far more effective option to reduce malaria than simply providing micro-loans as another option available.
After this process of thorough research has completed, GiveWell will then give their data to other third party organizations in order to holistically assess whether or not these proposed programs are well thought out and feasible for these organizations to implement. In addition to data analysis, GiveWell also reviews charity operations starting from reports and ranging to budget allocation, additional funding, etc.
A key driver in GiveWell’s mission is the ability for a philanthropic body or charity to be entirely transparent with their donors. The organization announces top charities they believe function most effectively in various areas such as money management and internal operations which make their mission not only uniquely planned, but also creates interesting fundraising campaigns.
Some major donors in the private sector also use GiveWell’s data as a basis to make large donations to specific charities the organization has approved.
Dustin Moshovitz, Facebook’s co-founder, has used research and data from GiveWell to decide which organizations exhibit transparency, along with finding the most productive ways to implement new programs. For the entire list of the top charities by GiveWell, please take a look at this link.