GiveWell finds highly cost-effective charities. Here's how they do it.

Choosing where to donate is incredibly difficult. Luckily, the charity evaluator GiveWell spends thousands of hours on program research each year to help people find highly-impactful giving opportunities. In this episode, Luke sits down with Neil Buddy Shah, GiveWell's managing director at the time of recording, for a deep dive into GiveWell's work. We cover GiveWell's origin, research approaches, and focus areas, as well as Buddy's personal background and relationship to effective giving. Buddy also responds to some of the questions of GiveWell's critics. Note: This is a shortened version of our chat with Buddy. The full interview, which goes into a lot more depth, is available on our podcast: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/podcast Neil Buddy Shah is now the CEO of The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). 👉To learn more about GiveWell, visit their website: www.givewell.org CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Making smart donation choices: GiveWell can help 01:09 - Introduction to GiveWell & Neil Buddy Shah 01:50 - GiveWell's origin 03:02 - GiveWell's goals and research approaches 05:55 - How does GiveWell calculate cost-effectiveness? 06:58 - How does GiveWell evaluate impact that is harder to measure? 09:19 - The work GiveWell supports 10:34 - Has GiveWell looked into funding economic approaches to poverty alleviation? 13:16 - Buddy's personal background and relationship to effective giving CREDITS: Production: Grace Adams Video editor: Marco Shimabukuro Interviewer: Luke Freeman Guest: Neil Buddy Shah OUR RESOURCES: ✍️ Take a giving pledge: https://givingwhatwecan.org/pledge 💕 Giving recommendations: https://givingwhatwecan.org/best-char... 🤑. 'How Rich Am I?' calculator: https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org 🤓. Recommended books, videos, podcasts: https://givingwhatwecan.org/resources 🙋‍♂️ Get involved: https://givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved BE OUR FRIEND: 💌 Sign up to our monthly email newsletter: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/newsl... 🌍 Our website / blog: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ 📸 Instagram:   / giving_what_we_can   🐦 Twitter:   / givingwhatwecan   👍 Facebook:   / givingwhatwecan