Thanks for the post Michael — these sorts of posts have been very helpful for making me a more informed donor. I just want to point out one minor thing though.
I appreciate you and your team’s work and plan on donating part of my giving season donations to either your organisation, Strongminds, or a combination of both. But I did find the title of this post a bit unnecessarily adversarial to GiveWell (although it’s clever, I must admit).
I’ve admired the fruitful, polite, and productive interactions between GW and HLI in the past and therefore I somewhat dislike the tone struck here.
Thanks for the feedback Julian. I’ve changed the title and added a ‘just’ that was supposed to have been added to final version but somehow got lost when we copied the text across. I don’t know how much that mollifies you...
We really ummed and erred about the title. We concluded that it was cheeky, but not unnecessarily adversarial. Ultimately, it does encapsulate the message we want to convey: that we should compare charities by their overall impact on wellbeing, which is what we think the WELLBY captures.
I don’t think many people really understand how GiveWell compares charities, they just trust GiveWell because that’s what other people seem to do. HLI’s whole vibe is that, if we think hard about what matters, and how we measure that, we can find even more impactful opportunities. We think that’s exactly what we’ve been able to do—the, admittedly kinda lame, slogan we sometimes use is ‘doing good better by measuring good better’.
To press the point, I wouldn’t even know how to calculate the cost-effectiveness of StrongMinds on GiveWell’s framework. It has two inputs: (1) income and (2) additional years of life. Is treating depression good just because it makes you richer? Because it helps you life longer? That really seems to miss the point. Hence, the WELLBY.
Unless GiveWell adopt the WELLBY, we will inevitably be competing with them to some extent. The question is not whether we compete—the only way we could not compete would be by shutting down—it’s how best to do it. Needless antagonism is obviously bad. We plan to poke and prod GiveWell in a professional and humourful way when we think they could do better—something we’ve been doing for several years already—and we hope they’ll do the same to us. Increased competition in the charity evaluation space will be better for everyone (see GWWC’s recent post).
I didn’t see the old title, but FWIW I had the same thought as Julian had about the old title about this title when I saw it just now:
Don’t just give well, give WELLBYs: HLI’s 2022 charity recommendation
“give well” clearly seemed like a reference to GiveWell to me. It sounded like you’re saying “Don’t give according to GiveWell’s recommendations; give according to HLI’s recommendations made on the basis of maximizing WELLBYs.”
It’s perfectly fine to say this of course, but I think it’s a bit off-putting to say it subtly like that rather than directly. Also it seems strange to make that statement the title, since the post doesn’t seem to be centrally about that claim.
I personally think it’s a good enough pun to be worth the cost (and I do think there is still a real, albeit I think somewhat minor, cost paid in it feeling a bit adversarial). I’ve laughed about it multiple times today as I revisited the EA Forum frontpage, and it lightened up my day a bit in these somewhat stressful times.
Fair enough. I agree that the current title feeling a bit adversarial is only a minor cost.
I’ve realized that my main reason for not liking the title is that the post doesn’t address my concerns about the WELLBY approach, so I don’t feel like the post justifies the title’s recommendation to “give WELLBYs” rather than “give well” (whether that means GiveWell or give well on some other basis).
On a meta-note, I’m reluctant to down-vote Julian’s top comment (I certainly wouldn’t want it to have negative karma), but it is a bit annoying that the (now-lengthy) top comment thread is about the title rather than the actual post. I suppose I’m mostly to blame for that by replying with an additional comment (now two) to the thread, but I also don’t want to be discouraged from adding my thoughts just by the fact that the comment thread is highly upvoted and thus prominently visible. (I strong-agreement-voted Julian’s comment, and refrained from regular karma voting on it.)
I think the debate between HLI and GW is great. I’ve certainly learned a lot, and have slightly updated my views about where I should give. I agree that competition between charities (and charity evaluators) is something to strive for, and I hope HLI keeps challenging GiveWell in this regard.
Thanks for the post Michael — these sorts of posts have been very helpful for making me a more informed donor. I just want to point out one minor thing though.
I appreciate you and your team’s work and plan on donating part of my giving season donations to either your organisation, Strongminds, or a combination of both. But I did find the title of this post a bit unnecessarily adversarial to GiveWell (although it’s clever, I must admit).
I’ve admired the fruitful, polite, and productive interactions between GW and HLI in the past and therefore I somewhat dislike the tone struck here.
Thanks for the feedback Julian. I’ve changed the title and added a ‘just’ that was supposed to have been added to final version but somehow got lost when we copied the text across. I don’t know how much that mollifies you...
We really ummed and erred about the title. We concluded that it was cheeky, but not unnecessarily adversarial. Ultimately, it does encapsulate the message we want to convey: that we should compare charities by their overall impact on wellbeing, which is what we think the WELLBY captures.
I don’t think many people really understand how GiveWell compares charities, they just trust GiveWell because that’s what other people seem to do. HLI’s whole vibe is that, if we think hard about what matters, and how we measure that, we can find even more impactful opportunities. We think that’s exactly what we’ve been able to do—the, admittedly kinda lame, slogan we sometimes use is ‘doing good better by measuring good better’.
To press the point, I wouldn’t even know how to calculate the cost-effectiveness of StrongMinds on GiveWell’s framework. It has two inputs: (1) income and (2) additional years of life. Is treating depression good just because it makes you richer? Because it helps you life longer? That really seems to miss the point. Hence, the WELLBY.
Unless GiveWell adopt the WELLBY, we will inevitably be competing with them to some extent. The question is not whether we compete—the only way we could not compete would be by shutting down—it’s how best to do it. Needless antagonism is obviously bad. We plan to poke and prod GiveWell in a professional and humourful way when we think they could do better—something we’ve been doing for several years already—and we hope they’ll do the same to us. Increased competition in the charity evaluation space will be better for everyone (see GWWC’s recent post).
I didn’t see the old title, but FWIW I had the same thought as Julian had about the old title about this title when I saw it just now:
“give well” clearly seemed like a reference to GiveWell to me. It sounded like you’re saying “Don’t give according to GiveWell’s recommendations; give according to HLI’s recommendations made on the basis of maximizing WELLBYs.”
It’s perfectly fine to say this of course, but I think it’s a bit off-putting to say it subtly like that rather than directly. Also it seems strange to make that statement the title, since the post doesn’t seem to be centrally about that claim.
I personally think it’s a good enough pun to be worth the cost (and I do think there is still a real, albeit I think somewhat minor, cost paid in it feeling a bit adversarial). I’ve laughed about it multiple times today as I revisited the EA Forum frontpage, and it lightened up my day a bit in these somewhat stressful times.
Fair enough. I agree that the current title feeling a bit adversarial is only a minor cost.
I’ve realized that my main reason for not liking the title is that the post doesn’t address my concerns about the WELLBY approach, so I don’t feel like the post justifies the title’s recommendation to “give WELLBYs” rather than “give well” (whether that means GiveWell or give well on some other basis).
On a meta-note, I’m reluctant to down-vote Julian’s top comment (I certainly wouldn’t want it to have negative karma), but it is a bit annoying that the (now-lengthy) top comment thread is about the title rather than the actual post. I suppose I’m mostly to blame for that by replying with an additional comment (now two) to the thread, but I also don’t want to be discouraged from adding my thoughts just by the fact that the comment thread is highly upvoted and thus prominently visible. (I strong-agreement-voted Julian’s comment, and refrained from regular karma voting on it.)
That phrasing is better, IMO. Thanks Michael.
I think the debate between HLI and GW is great. I’ve certainly learned a lot, and have slightly updated my views about where I should give. I agree that competition between charities (and charity evaluators) is something to strive for, and I hope HLI keeps challenging GiveWell in this regard.