Hewlett Foundation Affirms GiveWell's Charity Evaluation Model

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published December 19, 2008 @ 01:55PM PT

Recent participants in our "The One Thing You Need to Know Before You Give" round robin GiveWell announced in an email this morning that the Hewlett Foundation would be giving them a $100,000 grant to support general operations. This is perhaps no surprise, given Hewlett president Paul Brest's leadership on supporting strategic philanthropy, but it sends an important signal that GiveWell's serious model to evaluating nonprofits is getting some traction.

Sean Stannard-Stockton wrote about the post on Tactical Philanthropy and was excited to hear the news, both as an affirmation that serious approaches to nonprofit evaluation are important, but also because they announced that their own grant-making would be conducted through a donor-advised fund, allowing them to focus on their core capacity, which is research.

GiveWell has taken some flack for its approach to evaluation, but I think its worth pointing out that even when they don't recommend a nonprofit for funding, it's a judgement on the quality of the information with which a donor can evaluate a nonprofit's impact. An organization could create great impact and just not measure it in ways that allow them to improve their impact and demonstrate it to others. This is a problem in it's own right, but should be taken on its own terms. For example, read their reflections on YearUp, an organization they don't recommend for funding:

Year Up appeals to us because of its focus on carefully targeting people who are well-positioned to benefit, then getting them into relatively well-paying jobs. We also like the fact that it is a relatively focused organization that already operates several sites and could likely scale with more funding. Our extremely limited and potentially problematic analysis implies that Year Up graduates do better than they would without its help, though we hope to obtain better and clearer data on retention than what we have now.

Of course, like any young organization, their methodology will change and be refined as they learn more about their own enterprise. Still, I think GiveWell is an important voice in the field and will keep our collective feet to the fire to be serious about how we achieve our social missions.

For others interested in social return on investment, also check out another great organization, Mission Measurement, which helps nonprofits create impact assessment programs. Finally, as you're thinking about donating this holiday season, read the collective advice of some top philanthropy professionals here and also check out GiveWell's recommended charities.