GiveWell 10 Jun 2026 19:40 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: EA Organisation Updates thread: June 2026
GiveWell Updates
- GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld was recently named to the 2026 TIME100 Philanthropy list. Last year, GiveWell directed over $400 million to programs that save and improve lives, guided by the central question that has driven us from the very beginning—where can a dollar do the most good?
Read More
- In a recent podcast episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Program Officer Adam Salisbury about our growing livelihoods portfolio, focused on increasing the economic well-being of people in extreme poverty. Elie and Adam discuss testing variations of cash transfers, exploring poverty graduation programs, and funding research to answer key questions about which programs are most cost-effective.
Listen Here: Expanding Our Search for Cost-Effective Ways to Reduce Poverty
- We recently granted $5 million to the DIV Fund to identify and support promising water quality and access innovations we could consider for future funding. If you’re piloting an early-stage water intervention, or know someone who is, the RFP is now open on a rolling basis.
Learn More + Apply
- GiveWell has directed more than $1 billion to malaria prevention over our history. With increased capacity on our malaria research team—our largest research subteam—we’re expanding our malaria work by funding new research, increasing coverage of core programs, and exploring interventions beyond nets and seasonal malaria chemoprevention.
Read More: Growing GiveWell’s Largest Research Area
- Over the last decade, GiveWell has directed nearly $50 million to iron fortification and supplementation programs. In a recent episode of GiveWell Conversations, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Researcher Andrew Martin about our work on iron—including how an evaluation of our 2021 grant to Fortify Health, which showed the program was roughly twice as cost-effective as projected, led us to renew our support with a $10 million grant.
Listen Here: What a Decade of Iron Funding Has Taught Us

Expanding Our Search for Cost-Effective Ways to Reduce Poverty

GiveWell4 Jun 2026 20:40 UTC

14 points

1 comment2 min readEA link

How We’re Searching for the Best Ways to Help in 2026

GiveWell1 Jun 2026 15:22 UTC

38 points

1 comment12 min readEA link

Building our Safe Water Grantmaking: Apply to the DIV Fund’s RFP

GiveWell28 May 2026 20:25 UTC

9 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

What a Decade of Iron Funding Has Taught Us

GiveWell22 May 2026 20:55 UTC

23 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

Behind the Analysis: Assessing Past Malaria Nets Grants

GiveWell15 May 2026 14:19 UTC

9 points

0 comments4 min readEA link

GiveWell Opens RFI for Malaria Pilots and Research

GiveWell13 May 2026 15:33 UTC

9 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

GiveWell 13 May 2026 15:05 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: EA Organisation Updates thread: May 2026
GiveWell Updates
- GiveWell is launching a new RFI to expand and strengthen our malaria grantmaking in Africa and help our donors make a greater impact. Expressions of interest can be submitted through one of two tracks, the first for malaria chemoprevention and vector control pilot programs and the second for research and evaluation. Submissions are due June 24.
Learn More
- Most of GiveWell’s grantmaking focuses on programs that reduce child mortality, but our growing research capacity has expanded what we’re able to evaluate and fund, including highly cost-effective programs that meaningfully improve quality of life. In a recent podcast episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Program Officer Meika Ball about our grant to MiracleFeet—an organization that expands access to clubfoot treatment—and her recent site visit to see the program in action in Côte d’Ivoire.
Listen Here: Evaluating and Funding a New Kind of Grant
- Save the date for our upcoming webinar, Looking Back to Give Better: How GiveWell Evaluates Its Grantmaking, on Tuesday, June 9. GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld will moderate a conversation with Program Directors Alex Cohen and Julie Faller about how we evaluate whether a grant achieved the impact we initially estimated—and how we use those findings to make better impact estimates over time.
Register Here
- Vitamin A supplementation has one of the strongest evidence bases of any program we’ve evaluated. But when you dig in, the evidence is more complicated than it looks. GiveWell Senior Researcher Stephan Guyenet joins CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld on the GiveWell Conversations podcast to talk about the evidence for vitamin A supplementation, the hard questions that remain, and how our expanded research capacity is helping us go deeper so we can direct funding more effectively.
Listen Here: Scrutinizing One of Our Longest-Funded Programs

GiveWell 11 May 2026 16:33 UTC
2 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Tony Senanayake’s comment on: Impact Requires Implementation: What Dispensers for Safe Water Scale-Back Can Teach Us About Monitoring
Hi Tony, This is Mark again. Thanks for the nudge on this monitoring point!
We agree that real-time monitoring of critical activities is likely to be a cost-effective investment. For example, New Incentives (a program that provides conditional cash transfers for immunizations working with Northern Nigeria health clinics) tracks and shares with us data on cold chain failures, stockouts, rollout delays, security incidents, fraud, double treatment of children, and retention rates (see more information in this intervention report). We think this type of monitoring is a good investment for New Incentives and want others to do something similar, because it:
- Helps grantees catch and quickly address issues that would have affected impact (e.g., replacing skunked vaccines that wouldn’t have worked) and identify program improvements.
- Helps GiveWell triangulate coverage data of uncertain quality (e.g., if New Incentives clinics are usually stocked out of vaccines, that makes it unlikely that New Incentives is increasing vaccination coverage no matter what coverage surveys say)
- Informs GiveWell’s understanding of why some programs work, while others do not. For example, if stockouts caused New Incentives to not work, then we might want to fund programs to increase vaccine stock or improve allocation of vaccines in the future.
We’re still trying to understand the trade-offs between grantees doing this internally vs. externally, and we expect to learn as we go. It makes sense to me that it is usually most efficient and effective for grantees to do the core of this monitoring internally since we want them to be able to address these issues in real-time (point 1) rather than waiting for a report from an external firm. In cases where GiveWell is relying on the accuracy of this data for our decision-making (points 2 and 3), I think it makes sense to double-check data accuracy through external data quality audits and/or interviews with local stakeholders.
The same goes with standardizing. We think it’s good to have a minimum standard, but we guess there’s also variation in what’s feasible or makes sense across grantees and expect to figure that out with them. We’ve standardized monitoring and reporting within a few program areas, such as across all our recent water chlorination grants, in collaboration with our grantees (e.g., agreeing on consistent standards on what grantees are expected to track, at what frequency, and how findings should be acted on). However, we haven’t developed monitoring standards that apply across all program areas. I think there could be value in having broader principles, but, so far, we’ve prioritized addressing concrete issues we’ve identified rather than developing these broader principles. We are planning to publish more on the details of these program area-specific monitoring and reporting standards in the near-future.

Evaluating and Funding a New Kind of Grant (Clubfoot Treatment)

GiveWell20 Apr 2026 20:03 UTC

19 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

GiveWell 10 Apr 2026 23:04 UTC
6 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Impact Requires Implementation: What Dispensers for Safe Water Scale-Back Can Teach Us About Monitoring
Hi Tony—This is Mark Walsh, a GiveWell researcher on the team responsible for pressure-testing GiveWell’s research processes and conclusions. Thank you for this thoughtful write-up!
At a high level, I agree with the central thesis: we’ve underinvested in monitoring and evaluation, relative to other components of our analysis. Like you mentioned in your post, we’ve been working to fix that, and I wanted to share a little bit more on what we’ve done so far, what we’re planning, and some other related gaps in our work.
We think this kind of external engagement with our research is valuable and makes our work better. We’d welcome feedback on the steps we’ve taken so far and where we should consider doing more.
What we’ve done
Over the past year, we’ve been working on what we call “M&E red teaming”—a systematic review of the monitoring and evaluation practices of our largest grantees, motivated by the same concerns Tony raises. We’re planning to publish our findings soon but wanted to give a brief overview.
From June to December 2025, we dedicated teams of 3-4 research staff to work full-time for roughly 3 weeks each on six program areas: our four top charities plus water chlorination and malnutrition treatment. For each program, we evaluated many of the dimensions Tony highlights in his monitoring checklist: the independence of data collectors from program staff, the neutrality of the sampling frame, the objectivity and precision of measurement approach, data quality checks and backchecks, timeliness of data, triangulation with independent sources, and whether the program is taking timely action to address any issues raised by monitoring.
Since completing the red teaming, we’ve been doing the following to make improvements:
- Setting coverage survey standards. We’ve drafted coverage survey standards that cover survey firm independence, surveyor workloads, sampling protocols, backchecks, objective verification of key outcomes, and data-sharing timelines. We’re starting to solicit feedback on these from grantees to learn more about what’s feasible.
- Making several independent monitoring grants. Since August 2025, we’ve made 14 grants for independent monitoring and evaluation (see list of grants). For example:
  - We funded four research organizations (Asante Research Institute, Innovations for Poverty Action, ORB, and Universite de Kinshasa) to conduct vaccination coverage surveys in South Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  - We funded Marakuja to conduct a survey of net coverage, usage, and malaria burden in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  - We funded Innovations for Poverty Action to conduct a survey of net coverage and usage, seasonal malaria chemoprevention coverage and adherence, vitamin A supplementation coverage, and vaccination coverage in Nigeria.
  - We funded IDinsight to conduct coverage surveys, health facility data quality checks, and stakeholder interviews to evaluate malnutrition programs in Northern Nigeria.
- We required each of the 12 implementing partners funded through our chlorination Request for Information to contract with external survey firms and funded the Aquaya Institute to provide guidance on best practices (e.g., chlorination measurement, E. coli measurement, sampling frames, etc.) and regular quality control checks during the data collection period. In November 2024, we also funded Aquaya to directly monitor and evaluate the in-line chlorination pilot of Uduma.
- Ensuring grantees are adequately monitoring critical activities. We’ve made it standard practice to identify the critical activities required for the desired impact and to ensure grantees have plans for monitoring these in real-time and addressing issues quickly.
- Better data on population and program costs: The red teaming highlighted these as two other areas that are central to implementation that we think we’ve underinvested in. To address this, we have funded independent population estimates in key countries, are developing budget and financial reporting templates for some program areas, and are working on internal guidance and tools for grantmakers (e.g., a dashboard with alternative population estimates and rules of thumb for when/where to trust what estimates).
As Tony suggests, we think the right way to evaluate these investments is based on the value of the information we’ll gain and the impact we think it will have on our future grantmaking decisions. That means that we are more likely to fund expensive M&E in large grantmaking areas for GiveWell (or areas with a lot of room for more funding) and where we have more uncertainty so expect the M&E to affect our grantmaking a lot. For example, we’ve funded expensive independent coverage surveys of insecticide-treated nets and vaccinations programs because we direct a lot of funding to these programs. On the other hand, we are trying to take a rigorous but lighter-touch approach in cases where there is less funding at-stake, or where key uncertainties (e.g., whether an organization can establish partnerships or hire effectively) can be resolved more cheaply before investing in expensive M&E.
What’s next
Over the next several months, we’re planning to finalize and roll out our coverage survey standards with grantees; analyze the results from the independent surveys, enhanced M&E, and population/costs work we’ve commissioned; and dig further on more of these areas (e.g., investigating better ways to monitor the impact of our grantees on disease morbidity and mortality).
I expect we’ll learn a lot as we go about what’s feasible and what information is actually most valuable. I’m sure our approach will change as we learn more about both the cost and potential impact of this information. That being said, I think we are on the right track.
A broader gap
I also want to flag that we think the issues Tony raises are part of a broader gap. It’s not just that we need better quantitative monitoring—we also need to invest more in understanding what’s actually happening on the ground with the programs we fund.
We’ve been trying to gather more “local insights” on our work. This involves site visits, qualitative research, conversations with local experts, and other ways of testing our desk-based assumptions against what’s happening on the ground. One example is funding the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics to observe vitamin A supplementation delivery in Nigeria and interview households, front-line staff, and government officials about the program.
We’re still figuring out which approaches are most useful but think shifting more of our research effort “beyond the spreadsheet” in the ways Tony is describing is directionally right and something we’re making progress on. As I said at the start, we welcome feedback on our work so far—and on our future progress as it occurs.