GiveWell's top-rated charities

Our criteria:

• Is there evidence that a charity's programs are effective? (Why do we look for proven programs?)
• Are a charity's programs cost-effective? (How do we use "cost-effectiveness" figures?)
• Can the charity productively use additional funds? (Why is scalability important?)
• Is the above information shared transparently?
  
  

Top-rated charities

Out of approximately 400 that we have considered, these are our top-rated charities: (What do our ratings mean?)

Interpreting our ratings

- Strong on all of our criteria, and you can feel confident that your donation will cost-effectively change lives.

- Stands above the vast majority of charities on our criteria, though there is substantial room for concern on at least one of the criteria.

- Does not necessarily rate well on all our criteria, but there is at least one prominent and unusual factor in its favor compared to other charities: unusual transparency, unusual commitment to self-evaluation, superiority (on our criteria) to others with similar programs, and/or at least one substantial and impressive success in its past.

- Does not show signs of meeting any of our criteria.

What do you get for your dollar? An overview