Government should fund GiveWell

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GiveWell is a great asset to the philanthropy space, but we should also be building something like it within government.

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On GiveWell

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GiveWell prioritizes cost-effectiveness above all else, and is admirable in its transparency.

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It would be a good thing if more organizations had a prominent page titled Our Mistakes.

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They attempt to explain all their reasoning, incentivize being proven wrong, and keep a prominent log of their mistakes.

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GiveWell provides an accountable service for directing philanthropy.

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Why the government should get involved

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This is a public service, and we should be thinking about altruism as a shared responsibility.

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A truly shared responsibility should be routed through the one institution that we all legally have a say in: government.

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This would also allow for the government to take a light stance in favor of using data and cost benefit analyses to improve outcomes

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How the government should get involved

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One way this could happen is that the government could fund operations for GiveWell.

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This avoids the issue of government giving money to these charities directly for now, as this only creates a lean service for government to enable extra-governmental giving.

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This would unlock more of GiveWell’s revenue from individual donors and from other institutions to be sent directly to charities. GiveWell does not hold on to its excess assets.

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Alternatively, the government could begin a program to take on the most cost-effective global interventions.

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To begin, it might be similar to GiveWell, comparing different existing charities and causes.

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But eventually, this would be an opportunity for the US government to create a dynamic institution that can shift it’s priorities and funding as it cost-effectiveness changes or as our understanding of what matters evolves.

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Earmarking government funds for an institution like this makes much more sense to me than earmarking for one specific cause or issue (like Malaria, for example).

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This institution would be able to easily adjust it’s focus to the most tractable and important concern without the need to assume that one specific issue will be

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Maybe most importantly for our society, this would be a concrete step in having our government’s efforts to improve the world acknowledge the importance of focusing on outcomes and attempt to maximize the good we do with our resources.

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