[MarkWilson]

Hey, this is Mark Wilson, Founder of Philanthroper.

I truly respect their approach in that they're really going after impact measurement and tangible metrics. But if we all listened to GiveWell, there would be 10 charities in business. Literally. That's how many they've deemed worthy of your support.

GiveWell is kind of like that kid you knew in grade school who said he'd only marry a supermodel. Standards are great, until you realize that sleeping alone for your entire life might not be the best way to actually live.

[HoldenKarnofsky]

This is Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of GiveWell. Mark, we're glad to see your new project, and we appreciate the kind words re: respect for what we do. A couple points of clarification:

1. We don't claim (and have never claimed) that our recommended charities are the only ones worthy of support. Our goal is to identify, and drive money to, outstanding charities; our audience is donors who want to do as much good as possible, but don't have the time/resources to research charities on their own. We recognize that our methodology is not the only way to identify promising groups (though we believe it is most efficient for serving our audience). Think of us as investors: we work to find outstanding opportunities, but don't claim that all non-recommended opportunities are bad ones.

You can see more about how we think about this issue at http://blog.givewell.org/2009/05/07/small-unproven-charities...

2. In your analogy, it seems to me that the problem with "that kid's" behavior is that you can't unilaterally decide whom to marry. But you pretty much have your pick of where to give - there aren't any major charities that will turn you down as a donor. Given that situation, why not give to the best charity/charities you can find? We don't encourage anyone to "sleep alone," i.e., not give to charity.

Our recommendations aren't for everyone. We recognize the value of Philanthroper as a way to hopefully get people to give more than they would otherwise, and wish you the best with this mission. We hope that you'll consider featuring our top charities among others, because - like the others you plan on featuring - they are organizations with something special to offer.

[MarkWilson]

Holden, this is a pretty fair response - and I of all people know the difficulty of digging through the noise of the industry. I do think that, intrinsically, there's an implication that comes with that pie chart on your front page and a choice of 10.

There are a lot of NPOs, but there is just as much fear-mongering that justifies that little voice in peoples' head, tipping the scales as to whether they donate or not. This voice stops people from donating to anyone, lest their dollar be the dollar that buys an office supply rather than an air-dropped meal. In this economic climate, the impact of that voice is far worse than the consequence donating to an inefficient charity.

I think that this is something you could deal with by simply rebranding that idea a bit. 'The 10 Best Charities' is such a better sell than "There Are Only 10 Worthy Charities We've Found So Far." I really feel like that pie graph says the latter.

Again, it's not your mission - I'm sincere in saying that. I think it's the presentation. And that presentation alone would never be enough for me to exclude your top picks.

But clearly, we should chat more in another venue. I'm markATphilanthroper.com.

[HoldenKarnofsky]

Mark, thanks for the feedback. I think you raise a fair point. We always have a little bit of a balancing act with "headline" communications (i.e., introductory/"hook" content as opposed to pages deep on our site). No headline/chart can capture everything we're trying to say (and not say) while still being simple and intuitive. We're always discussing the tradeoffs and would be happy to speak further with you; I'll shoot you an email.

[BvS]

I think you mirepresent the approach of GiveWell.

They currently recommend only 10 charities of 408 (about 2.45%) because they have limited resources. If you could scale the proportion to all US charities you would end up with more than 30.000 recommended charities (2.45%).

Besides would you argue the same way with your broker if he only recommends a couple of stocks for your portfolio? If you want to make an impact/return you can't just take a little of everything but have to foucs.

Nevertheless I applaud you for your project. I'm currently thinking about setting up something similar in Germany. One thing I'm wondering about is if some extra incentive is necessary to make people donate/spread the word. Why should I donate now instead of tomorrow or next week (or never)? If you haven't done already you might want to have look how Groupon did it: http://www.groupon.com/raleigh-durham/deals/donorschoose-org.... Like they do with their normal deals there is a tipping point and donation matching (interestingly from a foundtaion not a corporation -> they would have donates anyway but why not trying to double it).