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.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Affiliated organizations (current or former; restricted to potential donees or others relevant to donation decisions) | GiveWell |
| Best overview URL | https://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/19/discretionary-grant-making-and-implications-for-donor-agency/ |
| Website | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund |
| Donations URL | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund |
| Page on philosophy informing donations | https://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/19/discretionary-grant-making-and-implications-for-donor-agency/ |
| Regularity with which donor updates donations data | continuous updates |
| Regularity with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update) | continuous updates |
| Lag with which donor updates donations data | months |
| Lag with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update) | months |
| Data entry method on Donations List Website | Manual (no scripts used) |
Brief history: GiveWell's Maximum Impact Fund began as a "discretionary regranting" option where donors could give money to GiveWell to allocate to its top charities. This differed from simply giving to GiveWell top charities using the recommended allocation, because GiveWell would determine the best use of marginal funds at the time of each regrant decision. GiveWell began highlighting discretionary regranting with https://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/19/discretionary-grant-making-and-implications-for-donor-agency/ in late 2016, and announced some major discretionary regrants in 2017. Starting with the 2017 giving season, GiveWell's recommendation to donors has been to give it the money for discretionary regranting. Per https://www.givewell.org/sources/blog-post/q1-q2-2020-discretionary-funding-allocation discretionary regranting was renamed to "Maximum Impact Fund" in the first half of 2020.
Brief notes on broad donor philosophy and major focus areas: The fund makes grants to GiveWell top charities, that are within the broad domain of global health and development. Top areas in recent years have included malaria, deworming, vitamin A supplementation, cash transfers, and seasonal intracountry migration.
Notes on grant decision logistics: For each discretionary regrant, which may be done about once a quarter, GiveWell looks at the most pressing of the needs of its top charities, and regrants funds based on those. Grant decisions have to be approved by the board. The grants using funds obtained by the end of a quarter are usually made within the next quarter.
Notes on grant publication logistics: Shortly after making the grant for a quarter, GiveWell publishes a blog post announcing and explaining the grant(s), and also updates https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund to include the grant and link to the blog post. In addition to public announcement, individual donors are also notified where "their" money ended up getting allocated.
Notes on grant financing: Money for the grants mostly comes from funds that are either donated directly to the Maximum Impact Fund (by earmarking the donation to GiveWell as being for top charities) or, in some cases, from unrestricted donations to GiveWell that are in excess of what GiveWell needs for operations. In some cases, grants made via donors explicitly for specific charities but done through the fund may also be included. As a general rule, all available money in the Maximum Impact Fund at the end of a quarter is granted out by the end of the next quarter, so no reserve or buffer is built up in the Maximum Impact Fund. In the case of regrant to the Against Malaria Foundation, the original donors show up in the Against Malaria Foundation donor list.
Full donor page for donor GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Website | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/schistosomiasis-control-initiative |
| Donate page | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/schistosomiasis-control-initiative/donate/ |
| Transparency and financials page | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/schistosomiasis-control-initiative/about/financial-statement/ |
| Twitter username | sci_ntds |
| Wikipedia page | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schistosomiasis_Control_Initiative |
| GiveWell review | https://www.givewell.org/charities/schistosomiasis-control-initiative |
| Launch date | 2002 |
| Notes | Subsidiary of Imperial College London |
Full donee page for donee Schistosomiasis Control Initiative
| Item | Value |
|---|
| Cause area | Count | Median | Mean | Minimum | 10th percentile | 20th percentile | 30th percentile | 40th percentile | 50th percentile | 60th percentile | 70th percentile | 80th percentile | 90th percentile | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 8 | 133,000 | 1,032,113 | 13,300 | 13,300 | 20,000 | 80,000 | 133,000 | 133,000 | 292,600 | 888,000 | 1,230,000 | 5,600,000 | 5,600,000 |
| Global health | 8 | 133,000 | 1,032,113 | 13,300 | 13,300 | 20,000 | 80,000 | 133,000 | 133,000 | 292,600 | 888,000 | 1,230,000 | 5,600,000 | 5,600,000 |
If you hover over a cell for a given cause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
Note: Cause area classification used here may not match that used by donor for all cases.
| Cause area | Number of donations | Total | 2018 | 2015 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global health (filter this donor) | 8 | 8,256,900.00 | 7,718,000.00 | 438,900.00 | 100,000.00 |
| Total | 8 | 8,256,900.00 | 7,718,000.00 | 438,900.00 | 100,000.00 |
Graph of spending by cause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)
Graph of spending by cause area and year (cumulative)
| Title (URL linked) | Publication date | Author | Publisher | Affected donors | Affected donees | Affected influencers | Document scope | Cause area | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Announcing our 2019 top charities | 2019-11-26 | Catherine Hollander | GiveWell | GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund | Malaria Consortium Against Malaria Foundation Helen Keller International Deworm the World Initiative Sightsavers The END Fund GiveDirectly Schistosomiasis Control Initiative | GiveWell | Evaluator consolidated recommendation list | Global health and development | GiveWell annual top charrities list. As in previous years, GiveWell recomemnds that donors donate to GiveWell to regrant to top charities at its discretion, but also provides its current ranked list of top charities to help donors make an informed decision. Its ranked list (from best to worst) is: Malaria Consortium (seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) program), Against Malaria Foundation, Helen Keller International (vitamin A suppplementation), charities that treat parasitic worm infections (Evidence Action's Deworm the World Initiative, Sightsavers, The END Fund), and GiveDirectly. From the perspective of cause areas, the rank is: malaria > vitamin A supplementation > deworming > cash transfers. This is consistent with, and highly influenced by, the cost-effectiveness estimates that GiveWell uses. The post highlights Malaria Consortium as the charity to select for donors who want to give directly to a charity. The post links to a number of more in-depth write-ups explaining the charity ranking, as well as to https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities/2019/open-philanthropy-recommendation which describes the recommendation to Open Philanthropy Project (and indirectly, to Good Ventures) on how to allocate funding to the top charities in 2019 |
| Our updated top charities for giving season 2018 | 2018-11-26 | Catherine Hollander | GiveWell | GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund Open Philanthropy | GiveWell top charities Malaria Consortium Helen Keller International Against Malaria Foundation Deworm the World Initiative Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Sightsavers The END Fund GiveDirectly | GiveWell | Evaluator consolidated recommendation list | Global health and development | GiveWell annual top charities list. GiveWell recommends that donors donate to GiveWell to regrant to top charities at its discretion, but also provides details on the individual top charities so that people can make an informed decision. In addition, the amounts determined for GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund and for donation by Good Ventures are also included, though details of the amount recommended to Good Ventures are in a separate blog post https://blog.givewell.org/2018/11/26/our-recommendation-to-good-ventures/ |
| Our top charities for giving season 2017 | 2017-11-27 | Natalie Crispin | GiveWell | GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund Good Ventures/GiveWell top and standout charities | GiveWell top charities Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Malaria Consortium Deworm the World Initiative Helen Keller International Sightsavers The END Fund No Lean Season GiveDirectly Development Media International Dispensers for Safe Water Food Fortification Initiative Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition Iodine Global Network Living Goods Project Healthy Children | GiveWell | Evaluator consolidated recommendation list | Global health and development | GiveWell annual top charity refresh, also announced amounts recommended for Good Ventures to donate to top charities. Added two new top charities |
| Approaches to Moral Weights: How GiveWell Compares to Other Actors | 2017-11-07 | GiveWell | GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund Open Philanthropy | GiveWell top charities Deworm the World Initiative Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Against Malaria Foundation Malaria Consortium GiveDirectly | GiveWell | Evaluator quantification approach | In-depth look at how the way GiveWell uses moral weights in cost-effectiveness analyses (such as the value of saving lives) compares with the way governments and others in public policy use it. One difference is that the target population GiveWell deals with is often in low and middle income countries (LMIC) for which estimates of the value of a life saved are more murky. The document also talks of the different moral weights associated with saving people at different ages. See https://blog.givewell.org/2017/11/07/how-givewell-and-mainstream-policymakers-compare-the-good-achieved-by-different-programs/ for a blog post by Josh Rosenberg announcing and summarizing the report. The earlier blog post https://blog.givewell.org/2017/06/01/how-givewell-uses-cost-effectiveness-analyses/ is also referenced. Also see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/newly-published-givewell-materials/xeSpZ512VFw (2017-11-07) for the mailing list announcement | ||
| Allocation of discretionary funds and new recommendation for donors | 2017-04-03 | Natalie Crispin | GiveWell | GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund | GiveWell top charities Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Deworm the World Initiative | GiveWell | Periodic donation list documentation | Global health | GiveWell announces that it will allocate $4.9 million dollars of discretionary funds as follows: $4.4 million to the Against Malaria Foundation, and $0.5 million to the Deworm the World Initiative. Further, it updates its recommendation to donors, saying they should give all money at the margin to the Against Malaria Foundation. This updates the November 2016 recommendation to give to AMF and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative in a 3:1 ratio |
| Discretionary grant making and implications for donor agency | 2016-12-19 | Andrew Martin | GiveWell | GiveWell Maximum Impact Fund | Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative | GiveWell | Broad donor strategy | Explains the difference between giving GiveWell money to grant at its own discretion and donating to current GiveWell top and standout charities |
Graph of all donations (with known year of donation), showing the timeframe of donations
| Amount (current USD) | Amount rank (out of 8) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Influencer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,230,000.00 | 2 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | See https://blog.givewell.org/2018/08/28/allocation-of-discretionary-funds-from-q2-2018/ for more details. Grant uses money donated between April and June 2018 (i.e., Q2 2018) of $1.2 million, as well as $2.9 million of unrestricted funds ($1.8 million held in reserve, and $1.1 million from a single donor donating $2.1 million). 30% of this total of $4.1 million is allocated to SCI in line with the general recommendation to donors to give 70% to AMF and 30% to SCI. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 30.00%. | |
| 888,000.00 | 3 | Global health/malaria/bednets | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between January and March 2018 (i.e., Q1 2018). See https://blog.givewell.org/2018/06/04/allocation-of-discretionary-funds-from-q1-2018/ for more details. Note that the grantmaking page rounds the total to $3.0 million, but the blog post specifies the amount as $2.96 million; we are using 30% of the latter. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 30.00%. | |
| 5,600,000.00 | 1 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between October and December 2017 (i.e., Q4 2017). See https://blog.givewell.org/2018/04/06/allocation-of-discretionary-funds-from-q4-2017/ for more details. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 100.00%. | |
| 133,000.00 | 5 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between January and May 2015. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 13.30%. | |
| 292,600.00 | 4 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between November and December 2014. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 13.30%. | |
| 13,300.00 | 8 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between July and October 2014. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 13.30%. | |
| 20,000.00 | 7 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between April and June 2014. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 20.00%. | |
| 80,000.00 | 6 | Global health/deworming | https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund | GiveWell | Grant uses money donated between January and March 2014. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 40.00%. |