Recognizing GWWC’s limited bandwidth for individual charity research, what would you think of the following policy: When GWWC learns of a charity recommendation from a trusted recommender, it will post a thread on this forum and invite comments about whether the candidate is in the same ballpark as the median top-rated organization in that cause area (as defined by GWWC, so “Improving Human Well-Being”). Although GWWC will still show significant deference to its trusted evaluators in deciding how to list organizations, it will include one sentence on the organization’s description linking to the forum notice-and-comment discussion. It will post a new thread on each listed organization at 2-3 year intervals, or when there is reason to believe that new information may materially affect the charity’s evaluation.
Given GWWC’s role and the length of its writeups, I don’t think it is necessary for GWWC to directly state reasons why a donor might reasonably choose not to donate to the charity in question. However, there does need to be an accessible way for potential donors to discover if those reasons might exist. While I don’t disagree with using FP as a trusted evaluator, its mission is not primarily directed toward producing public materials written with GWWC-type donors in mind. Its materials do not meet the bar I suggested in another comment for advisory organizations to GWWC-type donors: “After engaging with the recommender’s donor-facing materials about the recommended charity for 7-10 minutes, most potential donors should have a solid understanding of the quality of evidence and degree of uncertainty behind the recommendation; this will often include at least a brief mention of any major technical issues that might significantly alter the decision of a significant number of donors.” That is not a criticism of FP because it’s not trying to make recommendations to GWWC-type donors.
So giving the community an opportunity to state concerns/reservations (if any) and link to the community discussion seems potentially valuable as a way to meet this need without consuming much in the way of limited GWWC research resources.
Recognizing GWWC’s limited bandwidth for individual charity research, what would you think of the following policy: When GWWC learns of a charity recommendation from a trusted recommender, it will post a thread on this forum and invite comments about whether the candidate is in the same ballpark as the median top-rated organization in that cause area (as defined by GWWC, so “Improving Human Well-Being”). Although GWWC will still show significant deference to its trusted evaluators in deciding how to list organizations, it will include one sentence on the organization’s description linking to the forum notice-and-comment discussion. It will post a new thread on each listed organization at 2-3 year intervals, or when there is reason to believe that new information may materially affect the charity’s evaluation.
Given GWWC’s role and the length of its writeups, I don’t think it is necessary for GWWC to directly state reasons why a donor might reasonably choose not to donate to the charity in question. However, there does need to be an accessible way for potential donors to discover if those reasons might exist. While I don’t disagree with using FP as a trusted evaluator, its mission is not primarily directed toward producing public materials written with GWWC-type donors in mind. Its materials do not meet the bar I suggested in another comment for advisory organizations to GWWC-type donors: “After engaging with the recommender’s donor-facing materials about the recommended charity for 7-10 minutes, most potential donors should have a solid understanding of the quality of evidence and degree of uncertainty behind the recommendation; this will often include at least a brief mention of any major technical issues that might significantly alter the decision of a significant number of donors.” That is not a criticism of FP because it’s not trying to make recommendations to GWWC-type donors.
So giving the community an opportunity to state concerns/reservations (if any) and link to the community discussion seems potentially valuable as a way to meet this need without consuming much in the way of limited GWWC research resources.
Thanks for the suggestion Jason, though I hope the longer comment I just posted will clarify why I think this wouldn’t be worth doing.