40% of our charities reach or exceed the cost-effectiveness of the strongest charities in their fields (e.g., GiveWell/ACE recommended).
40% are in a steady state. This means they are having impact, but not at the GiveWell-recommendation level yet, or their cost-effectiveness is currently less clear-cut (all new charities start in this category for their first year).
20% have already shut down or might in the future.
Thanks for writing this up. I am excited about the work you are doing, but to be blunt, these success rates strike me as implausibly good. Here are a few reasons why I am skeptical:
As you note, charities generally get more cost-effective as they scale, and most CE charities are still quite small.
These charities are young, and there is a long learning curve associated with building an effective organization.
Doing good charitable work is hard—many charities are ineffective, and a substantial portion cause harm. Therefore, my prior is (also) that most incubated charities would not wind up being cost-effective, even if CE did a perfect job. Given this, I suspect that some of the 40% of cost-effective charities are not cost-effective, and that many of the”steady state” charities should be reclassified as “might shut down in the future” charities, although these three categories (“highly cost-effective”, “having impact”, and “might shut down”) are vague and do not cover the range of possible outcomes here.
The fact that this post pitches the program to potential applicants (“Applications are now open”) also makes me somewhat more skeptical about the positive gloss.
I have read your response here, and agree that it’d be good to have an external organization do a comprehensive evaluation.
Thanks for writing this up. I am excited about the work you are doing, but to be blunt, these success rates strike me as implausibly good. Here are a few reasons why I am skeptical:
As you note, charities generally get more cost-effective as they scale, and most CE charities are still quite small.
These charities are young, and there is a long learning curve associated with building an effective organization.
Doing good charitable work is hard—many charities are ineffective, and a substantial portion cause harm. Therefore, my prior is (also) that most incubated charities would not wind up being cost-effective, even if CE did a perfect job. Given this, I suspect that some of the 40% of cost-effective charities are not cost-effective, and that many of the”steady state” charities should be reclassified as “might shut down in the future” charities, although these three categories (“highly cost-effective”, “having impact”, and “might shut down”) are vague and do not cover the range of possible outcomes here.
The fact that this post pitches the program to potential applicants (“Applications are now open”) also makes me somewhat more skeptical about the positive gloss.
I have read your response here, and agree that it’d be good to have an external organization do a comprehensive evaluation.