Using colloquial, simple language is often appropriate, even if it’s not maximally precise. In fact, maximally precise doesn’t even exist—we always have to decide how detailed and complete a picture to paint.
I tend to agree, but historically EA (especially GiveWell) has been critical of the “donor illusion” involved in things like “sponsorship” of children in areas the NGO has already decided to fund by mainstream charities on a similar basis. More explicit statistical claims about future marginal outcomes based on estimates of outcomes of historic campaign spend or claims about liberating from confinement and mutilation when it’s one or the other free seem harder to justify than some of the other stuff condemned as “donor illusion”.
Even leaning towards the view it’s much better for charities to have effective marketing than statistical and semantic exactness, that debate is moot if estimates are based mainly on taking credit for decisions other parties had already made, as claimed by the VettedCauses review. If it’s true[1] that some of their figures come from commitments they should have known do not exist and laws they should have known were already changed it would be absolutely fair to characterise those claims as “false”, even if it comes from honest confusion (perhaps ACE—apparently the source of the figures—not understanding the local context of Sinergia’s campaigns?)
If it’s true[1] that some of their figures come from commitments they should have known do not exist and laws they should have known were already changed it would be absolutely fair to characterise those claims as “false”, even if it comes from honest confusion
We would like to clarify something. Sinergia wrote a 2023 report that states “teeth clipping is prohibited” under Normative Instruction 113/2020. Teeth clipping has been illegal in Brazil since February 1, 2021[1]. In spite of this, Sinergia took credit for alleged commitments leading to alleged transitions away from teeth clipping (see Row 12 for an example).
We prefer not to speculate about whether actions were intentional or not, so we didn’t include this in our report. We actually did not include most of our analysis or evidence in the review we published, since brevity is a top priority for us when we write reviews. The published review is only a small fraction of the problems we found.
We actually did not include most of our analysis or evidence in the review we published, since brevity is a top priority for us when we write reviews. The published review is only a small fraction of the problems we found.
I’d suggest publishing an appendix listing more problems you believe you identified, as well as more evidence. Brevity is a virtue, but I suspect much of your potential impact lies with moving grantmaker money (and money that flows through charity recommenders) from charities that allegedly inflate their outcomes to those that don’t. Looking at Sinergia’s 2023 financials, over half came from Open Phil, and significant chunks came from other foundations. Less than 1% was from direct individual donations, although there were likely some passthrough-like donations recommended by individuals but attributed to organizations.
Your review of Sinergia is ~1000 words and takes about four minutes to read. That may be an ideal tradeoff between brevity and thoroughness for a potential three-to-four figure donor, but I think the balance is significantly different for a professional grantmaker considering a six-to-seven figure investment.
ACE gave the public incorrect formulas for calculating Achievement Quality Scores, and by extension, Normalized Achievement Scores and Cost-Effectiveness Scores.
ACE chose to not reveal that these were the incorrect formulas until significant problems with their publicly disclosed formulas were raised.
Giving the public incorrect formulas isn’t just misleading, it’s making false claims. The formula for the circumference of a circle is C = 2 × π × r. If someone claims the formula is C = π × r, this is a false claim.
Additionally, the hidden evaluation criteria ACE has currently disclosed does not even fully address the 2 problems they denied. However, it is possible ACE has additional hidden evaluation criteria they could point to if anyone raised this issue. Unfortunately, there is no limit on how much alleged hidden information a charity could have, and it is impossible for us to determine if alleged hidden information is actually just fabricated evidence.
During the 90 days between ACE’s response to our critique and our Sinergia Review, zero people (other than ourselves) made a comment or a post pointing out any of these issues with ACE’s response. Instead, ACE’s response was upvoted, and we were criticized on our Sinergia Review for not pre-disclosing our critiques with charities. We suspect the criticism was harsher because ACE denied 2 of the problems in our first review as described above.
We would like to avoid these issues coming up again should Sinergia/ACE decide to respond. Thus, at this time we believe it is best to not disclose every problem we are currently aware of. This way if Sinergia/ACE wants to dispute anything on the basis of hidden evaluation criteria, it will have to properly address all of the undisclosed problems we are aware of. This makes it less likely for the excuse of hidden evaluation criteria to work.
I tend to agree, but historically EA (especially GiveWell) has been critical of the “donor illusion” involved in things like “sponsorship” of children in areas the NGO has already decided to fund by mainstream charities on a similar basis. More explicit statistical claims about future marginal outcomes based on estimates of outcomes of historic campaign spend or claims about liberating from confinement and mutilation when it’s one or the other free seem harder to justify than some of the other stuff condemned as “donor illusion”.
Even leaning towards the view it’s much better for charities to have effective marketing than statistical and semantic exactness, that debate is moot if estimates are based mainly on taking credit for decisions other parties had already made, as claimed by the VettedCauses review. If it’s true[1] that some of their figures come from commitments they should have known do not exist and laws they should have known were already changed it would be absolutely fair to characterise those claims as “false”, even if it comes from honest confusion (perhaps ACE—apparently the source of the figures—not understanding the local context of Sinergia’s campaigns?)
I would like to hear Sinergia’s response, and am happy for them to take their time if they need to do more research to clarify.
Thanks for your input David!
We would like to clarify something. Sinergia wrote a 2023 report that states “teeth clipping is prohibited” under Normative Instruction 113/2020. Teeth clipping has been illegal in Brazil since February 1, 2021[1]. In spite of this, Sinergia took credit for alleged commitments leading to alleged transitions away from teeth clipping (see Row 12 for an example).
We prefer not to speculate about whether actions were intentional or not, so we didn’t include this in our report. We actually did not include most of our analysis or evidence in the review we published, since brevity is a top priority for us when we write reviews. The published review is only a small fraction of the problems we found.
See Article 38 Section 2 and Article 54 of Normative Instruction 113/2020.
I’d suggest publishing an appendix listing more problems you believe you identified, as well as more evidence. Brevity is a virtue, but I suspect much of your potential impact lies with moving grantmaker money (and money that flows through charity recommenders) from charities that allegedly inflate their outcomes to those that don’t. Looking at Sinergia’s 2023 financials, over half came from Open Phil, and significant chunks came from other foundations. Less than 1% was from direct individual donations, although there were likely some passthrough-like donations recommended by individuals but attributed to organizations.
Your review of Sinergia is ~1000 words and takes about four minutes to read. That may be an ideal tradeoff between brevity and thoroughness for a potential three-to-four figure donor, but I think the balance is significantly different for a professional grantmaker considering a six-to-seven figure investment.
Thank you for your feedback, Jason. We may do this in the future, but at this time believe it is best not to.
In the first review we published, ACE admitted to 4 of the problems we identified, and denied 2 of them. These 2 denials were based on the claim that ACE had hidden evaluation criteria that we did not consider in our analysis. ACE’s claim means:
ACE gave the public incorrect formulas for calculating Achievement Quality Scores, and by extension, Normalized Achievement Scores and Cost-Effectiveness Scores.
ACE chose to not reveal that these were the incorrect formulas until significant problems with their publicly disclosed formulas were raised.
Giving the public incorrect formulas isn’t just misleading, it’s making false claims. The formula for the circumference of a circle is C = 2 × π × r. If someone claims the formula is C = π × r, this is a false claim.
Additionally, the hidden evaluation criteria ACE has currently disclosed does not even fully address the 2 problems they denied. However, it is possible ACE has additional hidden evaluation criteria they could point to if anyone raised this issue. Unfortunately, there is no limit on how much alleged hidden information a charity could have, and it is impossible for us to determine if alleged hidden information is actually just fabricated evidence.
During the 90 days between ACE’s response to our critique and our Sinergia Review, zero people (other than ourselves) made a comment or a post pointing out any of these issues with ACE’s response. Instead, ACE’s response was upvoted, and we were criticized on our Sinergia Review for not pre-disclosing our critiques with charities. We suspect the criticism was harsher because ACE denied 2 of the problems in our first review as described above.
We would like to avoid these issues coming up again should Sinergia/ACE decide to respond. Thus, at this time we believe it is best to not disclose every problem we are currently aware of. This way if Sinergia/ACE wants to dispute anything on the basis of hidden evaluation criteria, it will have to properly address all of the undisclosed problems we are aware of. This makes it less likely for the excuse of hidden evaluation criteria to work.