Podcast Summary: EconTalk – Elie Hassenfeld on GiveWell

Host: Russ Roberts
Guest: Elie Hassenfeld, CEO and co-founder of GiveWell
Date: October 2, 2023
Listen: EconTalk.org

Overview

In this episode, Russ Roberts interviews Elie Hassenfeld, co-founder and CEO of GiveWell, a nonprofit focused on identifying the most impactful, evidence-backed charities. The conversation explores GiveWell's methodology, philosophical underpinnings, decision-making process, and the broader dilemmas of charitable giving—balancing personal fulfillment, philanthropy, and measurable impact.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis and Mission of GiveWell – [00:49–03:34]

• Origins: Elie and co-founder Holden Karnofsky were frustrated by the lack of transparency and rigorous data around charity effectiveness.
• Early Challenges: Realized that claims like "$20 provides a child water for life" lacked robust backing.
• Founding GiveWell (2007): Sought to create a resource for donors wanting their money to have maximal, demonstrable impact, particularly those without staff or specialized knowledge.
• Transparency: All research, data, and reasoning are published openly.

  • "We put all of our research and the reasoning behind the research on our website so that ... outsiders [can] understand what we're doing and why and critique it where they have disagreement." – Elie (02:59)

2. Effective Altruism and GiveWell Philosophy – [03:34–06:03]

• Unique Approach: Unlike other charity evaluators, GiveWell recommends a small number of charities they believe provide the highest impact per dollar, focusing on actual effectiveness rather than overhead ratios or process efficiency.
• Philosophy: The desire is not just to feel virtuous but to be virtuous—ensuring donations actually save or improve lives.

3. How GiveWell Selects Charities – [08:09–11:23]

• Current Top Charities [2023]:
  • Malaria Consortium (Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention)
  • Against Malaria Foundation (Insecticide-Treated Net Distribution)
  • Helen Keller International (Vitamin A Supplementation)
  • New Incentives (Conditional Cash Transfers for Immunization in Nigeria)
• Impact Estimates: Approximately $5,000 per death averted.

  • "About $5,000 per life saved is a way of just having a benchmark for what we're talking about here." – Elie (11:13)

• "All Grants Fund": Supports promising work outside core top recommendations.

4. Qualifying and Quantifying Impact – [11:49–15:34]

• Model Nuance: Impact estimates carefully adjust for real-world factors:
  • RCTs differ from nationwide implementations.
  • Insecticide resistance now affects malaria net efficacy.
  • “Fungibility adjustment”: Taking into account whether GiveWell’s funding simply displaces other sources, not creating additional net good.

  • "We don't care what GiveWell donors’ money... accomplish. We care about ideally the causal impact that our work has on the world." – Elie (13:33)

• Uncertainty: There's inherent, acknowledged uncertainty despite their rigorous quantification.

5. Philosophical Underpinnings & Practical Choices – [14:38–20:38]

• Utilitarian Foundations: While not rooted in formal philosophical study, their methods are deeply utilitarian—in practice, if not always in theory.
• Focus on Child Survival: Many deaths in low-income countries occur very early in life; interventions here yield substantial life-prolonging improvements, as well as enhanced quality of life.

  • "People whose deaths we avert in childhood go on to... live long, relatively happy lives." – Elie (17:25)

• Addressing Poverty's Root Causes: GiveWell would love to find clear ways to end poverty, but sees more concrete, proven value in direct interventions (e.g. malaria, vitamin A).

6. The Balance Between Empiricism and Big Bets – [22:21–25:43]

• Support for Innovation: When promising but unproven, GiveWell sometimes funds programs or research centers (e.g., Yale’s Y-RISE) to help drive scalable solutions—especially if there’s a track record to suggest real-world implementation can succeed.
• Learning focus: Preference for supporting interventions where outcomes can be clearly measured and inform continuous improvement.

  • "We tend to, with the vast majority of the funds we direct, put them in places where we will be able to know if we were right or if we were wrong." – Elie (23:33)

7. Why Only Four Top Charities? – [25:43–30:46]

• Selection Process:
  • Broad initial scan of thousands of organizations.
  • Focus on strong evidence (randomized trials/public health data).
  • Three main criteria:
    1. Strong evidence of substantial effect.
    2. High estimated impact per dollar (currently 10x impact over direct cash transfers is the threshold for inclusion).
    3. Track record of large-scale funding—at least $10 million, one year of collaboration.
• Decision-Making: Reached via detailed debate and consensus among senior research team. Numbers are heavily weighted, but not final authority.

8. Beyond the Numbers: Soft Factors & Judgment – [31:34–35:44]

• Qualitative Overlays:
  • "Unmodeled upside": Potential for growth or breakthrough that's not captured in metrics.
  • Organizational transparency, learning orientation, and leadership track record also weigh in.
  • Example: Sometimes, a lower-number opportunity gets funded if team quality and openness are exceptional.

9. Managing Scale and Strategic Partnership – [35:44–40:52]

• Risks of Success: Like a small business winning a huge customer, rapid influx of funds can destabilize a charity if it can't grow capacity accordingly.
• "Room for more funding": GiveWell ensures organizations can wisely use the funds they might receive before recommending them.
• Types of support: Most is direct programmatic, but GiveWell occasionally offers unrestricted funding to organizations with exceptional leadership and needs.

10. Learning from Mistakes – [41:35–48:23]

• Notable Early Errors:
  • Overreliance on sheer quantity of data (Population Services International)—not all data is created equal.
  • Overestimated ease of scaling programs (No Lean Season in Bangladesh).
  • Lesson: Be patient, iterative, and critical—even when promising trials work at small scale, scaling is hard and may demand more persistence.

  • "We made a grant, I think we made a good bet and we were wrong and we ended our support." – Elie (44:55)

11. Transparency in Practice: The "Change Our Mind" Contest – [48:23–52:11]

• Objective: Invite public scrutiny and pay for corrections or critiques of their quantitative analysis.
• Successes: Received >50 high-quality submissions, revealing minor errors and highlighting areas needing clearer communication of uncertainty.
• Outcome: Improved site "legibility" and enhanced explicit treatment of uncertainty in models.

  • "Most importantly, people called us out for being insufficiently transparent about the uncertainty inherent in our analysis." – Elie (50:02)

12. Crowding Out, Crowding In, and GiveWell’s Influence – [52:11–55:27]

• Economic Effects: Sometimes GiveWell grants displace other donors; other times, their endorsement catalyzes more donations ("crowding in").
• Example: Malaria Consortium's program benefited from GiveWell’s early support, which contributed to broader governmental and global backing.

13. Challenges and Worries as GiveWell Grows – [55:27–61:53]

• Preserving Judgment in a Scaling Organization:

  • As GiveWell grows, it’s tempting for newer staff to rely too much on numbers.
  • Elie’s concern: Maintain their blend of intense quantification and qualitative, critical judgment.

  • "One of the things I've seen as we've grown as an organization... is this tendency... for staff to want to rely more on the numbers." – Elie (56:28)

• Case Example: Funding chlorinated water delivery in India required overlaying trust (track record) on top of data and models, with uncertainty still present.

14. Local Giving vs. Maximizing Impact – [61:53–71:01]

• Russ’s Dilemma: Is it wrong to give to local, personally meaningful charities rather than GiveWell’s top picks?

• Elie’s Take: Support local institutions you use (e.g., synagogue, school), but for "impact budget," favor opportunities proven to save lives or maximize help.

  • "When I give to the synagogue or my school's PTA, I see it as a shared responsibility to support a service that I use. And the reason that I give, that I think one should seriously consider giving to the organizations we recommend is... just the magnitude of the impact that they have." – Elie (63:28)

• Russ’s Self-Reflection: Local giving can heighten human connections; global giving can massively reduce suffering. Both may represent essential aspects of being human.

• Elie’s Final View: It's not all or nothing; allow part of your giving to support local flourishing and part to address urgent global needs.

Memorable Quotes

• On transparency and humility:

  "The transparency and the care and the openness, it's really unparalleled... And your openness of both expressing uncertainty and imperfect confidence. There's a lot of humility in your website." – Russ (03:11)

• On GiveWell’s philosophy:

  "We put all of our research and the reasoning behind the research on our website so that... outsiders [can] understand what we're doing and why and critique it where they have disagreement." – Elie (02:59)

• On quantification and judgment:

  "We're intensely interested in quantification while also highly aware of all the problems with quantification. And I think it's very hard to maintain that tension... as we keep growing as an institution." – Elie (57:30)

• On how to approach giving:

  "I'm trying to separate those... personal and familial and people close to me, their success and thriving. But then I have this opportunity to just decide where the vast majority of the dollars that I'm going to give go... That's what I do." – Elie (70:07)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:49–03:34: GiveWell's founding story; commitment to transparency.
• 08:09–11:23: Current top charities; impact per dollar.
• 11:49–15:34: Real-world complications and quantification limits.
• 25:43–30:46: How GiveWell selects (and limits) its list of top charities.
• 35:44–40:52: Strategic partnership, scaling, and sustainability considerations.
• 41:35–48:23: Past mistakes and the evolution of GiveWell's processes.
• 48:23–52:11: "Change Our Mind" contest—learning from public feedback.
• 61:53–71:01: Local versus global giving; philosophical reflections and practical compromises.

Tone and Style

Candid, reflective, and intellectually rigorous; both Russ and Elie acknowledge complexity, limitations, and the human side of philanthropy. The tone is encouraging of thoughtful skepticism and modeling humility when faced with uncertainty.

Conclusion

This episode offers a rich exploration of modern effective giving—a journey from frustrated donor to evidence-driven philanthropic leader. Elie Hassenfeld and GiveWell provide a transparent, evolving framework for maximizing impact, while openly grappling with the respective roles of data, judgment, personal connection, and philosophical ideals in charitable decision-making.