Evidence Action donations received

This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of July 2024. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.

Table of contents

Basic donee information

We do not have any donee information for the donee Evidence Action in our system.

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 8 750,000 1,593,052 0 0 100 100 750,000 750,000 800,000 800,000 2,642,300 7,751,915 7,751,915
Global health and development 5 800,000 2,398,843 0 0 0 800,000 800,000 800,000 800,000 2,642,300 2,642,300 7,751,915 7,751,915
2 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Water and sanitation 1 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000 750,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee Evidence Action

Donor Total 2019 2017 2014
GiveWell Incubation Grants (filter this donee) 11,994,215.00 8,551,915.00 3,442,300.00 0.00
Stone Family Foundation (filter this donee) 750,000.00 0.00 750,000.00 0.00
Aaron Gertler (filter this donee) 200.00 0.00 0.00 200.00
Ozy Brennan (filter this donee) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Total 12,744,415.00 8,551,915.00 4,192,300.00 200.00

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (5 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
We’re Shutting Down No Lean Season, Our Seasonal Migration Program: Here’s Why2019-06-06Kanika Bahl Evidence Action No Lean Season Donee periodic updateSeasonal intracountry migrationEvidence Action explains why it is shutting down No Lean Season, its program that provides subsidies for seasonal intracountry migration in Bangladesh. The main reason cited is allegations of financial irregularities, which led No Lean Season to terminate its relationship with the local implementation partner. The lack of clear positive results is also cited. An accident in Cumilla, Bangladesh, that caused the death of some workers who had received subsidies from No Lean Season, is also mentioned, but not cited as a reason for closing the program
EA Giving Tuesday Donation Matching Initiative 2018 Retrospective (GW, IR)2019-01-06Avi Norowitz Effective Altruism ForumAvi Norowitz William Kiely Against Malaria Foundation Malaria Consortium GiveWell Effective Altruism Funds Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters Effective Animal Advocacy Fund The Humane League The Good Food Institute Animal Charity Evaluators Machine Intelligence Research Institute Faunalytics Wild-Aniaml Suffering Research GiveDirectly Center for Applied Rationality Effective Altruism Foundation Cool Earth Schistosomiasis Control Initiative New Harvest Evidence Action Centre for Effective Altruism Animal Equality Compassion in World Farming USA Innovations for Poverty Action Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Future of Life Institute Animal Charity Evaluators Recommended Charity Fund Sightsavers The Life You Can Save One Step for Animals Helen Keller International 80,000 Hours Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative Vegan Outreach Encompass Iodine Global Network Otwarte Klatki Charity Science Mercy For Animals Coalition for Rainforest Nations Fistula Foundation Sentience Institute Better Eating International Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research Raising for Effective Giving Clean Air Task Force The END Fund Miscellaneous commentaryThe blog post describes an effort by a number of donors coordinated at https://2018.eagivingtuesday.org/donations to donate through Facebook right after the start of donation matching on Giving Tuesday. Based on timestamps of donations and matches, donations were matched till 14 seconds after the start of matching. Despite the very short time window of matching, the post estimates that $469,000 (65%) of the donations made were matched
Donation Post: 20182019-01-03Ozy Brennan Ozy Brennan Longevity Research Institute Evidence Action Effective Altruism Funds Periodic donation list documentationGlobal health and development|Scientific research|Animal welfareThe blog post describes Ozy Brennan's donations for 2018, along with an explanation of the selection of each donee. The high-level explanation: "This year I am splitting my donations between the Animal Welfare Fund (animals), Evidence Action (global poverty), and the Longevity Research Institute (anti-aging). I’m taking basically the same approach with all three places I’m donating this year. I am not donating to particular programs that I think are high impact, such as malaria nets or cellular agriculture. Instead, I’m delegating my donation decisions to particular people or organizations. In two cases, I’m betting on a specific person that I have reason to believe is more informed, has better judgment, and is generally capable of making better decisions than me. In a third case, Evidence Action, I’m betting on an organization’s process and epistemics: while I know little about their current charities, I’m impressed by their transparency and commitment to admitting when things they’re trying may not work."
Why (and when) we test at scale: No Lean Season and the quest for impact2018-11-19Karen Levy Varna Sri Raman Evidence Action No Lean Season Donee periodic updateSeasonal intracountry migrationEvidence Action, which runs the incubation program Evidence Action Beta under which No Lean Season is being incubated, reviews the results of the 2017 RCT that did not show the expected impact of scaling up its seasonal intracountry migration program in Bangladesh. The diagnosis was that implementation issues led to a slow rate of actual loan disbursement and therefore too small an effect on migration to yield the sought increases in income and consumption. The post mentions how this feedback was used to improve the iteration of the program in 2018, and the results should begin to emerge in early 2019. See also the related GiveWell post (removing No Lean Season from top charity status) at https://blog.givewell.org/2018/11/19/update-on-no-lean-seasons-top-charity-status
Overview of the Open Philanthropy Project’s work on migration liberalisation2015-03-18Sebastian Nickel Open Borders: The CaseOpen Philanthropy Center for Global Development ImmigrationWorks Foundation U.S. Association for International Migration Evidence Action Third-party coverage of donor strategyMigration policyThe blog post reviews Open Philanthropy's philanthropy strategy related to promoting freer migration in the context of their broader thinking, and discusses grants made so far to the Center for Global Development, ImmigrationWorks Foundation, and U.S. Association for International Migration. It also has a section on work related to migration within national borders that Open Philanthropy is funding. A conclusion section discusses the author's overall takeaways, and includes the sentence: "I am very impressed with the Open Philanthropy Project’s work on labour mobility."

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (8 donations)

Graph of top 10 donors (for donations with known year of donation) by amount, showing the timeframe of donations

Graph of donations and their timeframes
DonorAmount (current USD)Amount rank (out of 8)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
GiveWell Incubation Grants800,000.0032019-03Global health and developmenthttps://www.givewell.org/research/incubation-grants/march-2019-evidence-action-beta-iron-folic-acid-impact-evaluation-- Grant to Evidence Action for the Phase 2 pilot stage of its technical assistance to the Government of India's national school-based iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation program. Affected countries: India; announced: 2019-04-02.
GiveWell Incubation Grants7,751,915.0012019-03Global health and developmenthttps://www.givewell.org/research/incubation-grants/march-2019-evidence-action-- Grant for organizational strengthening. Evidence Action plans to use this grant to build its fundraising function, add senior leadership capacity, review its compensation scheme, and strengthen its affiliated entity in India. The grant also includes some flexible funding. GiveWell recommends making this grant in order to: a) leverage a larger increase in funds for Evidence Action's programs, several of which we believe are highly cost-effective, through its fundraising activities, b) increase senior leadership capacity and make existing senior leaders' workloads more manageable, and c) help improve the long-term health of Evidence Action as an organization. Announced: 2019-04-02.
Ozy Brennan----2019-01-03Global health and developmenthttps://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/donation-post-2018/-- Ozy is excited about Evidence Action because of their goal of, and success with, implementing priority programs with rigorous monitoring and evaluation and opennness and transparency about what is and isn't working. In particular, their openness regarding the underperformance of No Lean Season impressed Ozy. Ozy identifies the following characteristics for others who may be interested in donating to Evidence Action: "(a) People who want to reward Evidence Action for admitting that No Lean Season may not work. (b) People who want to invest in improving charity epistemics. (c) People who want more global poverty charities implementing priority programs to exist.".
GiveWell Incubation Grants800,000.0032017-12Global health and developmenthttps://www.givewell.org/charities/evidence-action/dec-2017-grant-- Grant for general operating support. Grantee intends to use this support to fund a deficit in its operating budget. We made this grant with two goals in mind: (a) to support the development of programs that could be future top charities (the goal of our Incubation Grants program), and (b) to support the Deworm the World Initiative and No Lean Season, programs run by Evidence Action that are GiveWell top charities. Announced: 2018-01-03.
GiveWell Incubation Grants2,642,300.0022017-04Global health and developmenthttps://www.givewell.org/charities/evidence-action/april-2017-grant-- Grant to strengthen its financial systems, human resources, and information technology. In addition to its role as an incubation grant (for the development of new top charities) the grant would also support Deworm the World Initiative, which is run by Evidence Action. Announced: 2017-07-31.
Stone Family Foundation750,000.0052017Water and sanitationhttp://www.thesff.com/water-and-sanitation/enterprises-in-safe-water/evidence-action/--
Aaron Gertler100.0062014-12-25--https://aarongertler.net/donations-all-years/-- Yale Effective Altruists winter fundraiser.
Aaron Gertler100.0062014-12-23--https://aarongertler.net/donations-all-years/-- Yale Effective Altruists winter fundraiser.