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Recent Posts
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- Prince Andrew’s patronage of charities didn’t help
- Was Prince Andrew any good as a charity patron? We’re finding out
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- Shifting the power in philanthropy: Types of initiative
- Most grant-makers don’t seem to know if they are effective
- More UK foundations are reporting the diversity of their staff and trustees
- Measuring children’s safety in organisations: Evaluating the strengths and limitations of currently-used measures
- Why the Fdn Practice Rating doesn’t assess the same foundations each year, and why that’s fine
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Author Archives: carolinefiennes
Influential charities you’ve never heard of: Lucy Faithfull Foundation
This Advent calendar, of influential charities you’ve never heard of, appeared in Spears Magazine. In the run-up to Christmas, Spear’s highlighted four charities which it recommend supporting. You’ve probably never heard of them, and that’s deliberate. This week is the Lucy … Continue reading
Posted in Great charities, Uncategorized
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Why I’m delighted to join the advisory panel of Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator is the world’s largest charity ‘ratings agency’, providing online ratings of 6,000 US-based charities which are used by over 3million donors each year. It’s also the sole organisation slagged off in my book about how donors can best … Continue reading
Posted in Admin costs, Great charities, Impact & evaluation
Tagged analysis, beneficiary, charity, Charity Navigator, effectiveness, feedback, impact, impact assessment
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Why Fewer Is More in Charitable Giving
This article was first published by Freakonomics and is co-authored with Phil Buchanan As any 10-year-old can tell you, multiplication is commutative: 2 x $70 is the same as 70 x $2. But not in charitable giving, it turns out. Making … Continue reading
The Truth, The Whole Truth
This article was first published by the Alliance for Useful Evidence. Thomas Edison failed more than 1,000 times before he eventually found a successful design for a lightbulb. When asked about it, he said: “I have not failed 1,000 times. I … Continue reading
Posted in Impact & evaluation, Uncategorized
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Publicising charities’ admin spend would be a disaster
This first appeared in The Guardian, and is co-authored with Kurt Hoffman, DIrector of the Institute of Philanthropy Joe Saxton suggested last month that charities must do more to explain their finances but it’s charities’ results that matter. The public don’t know … Continue reading
Posted in Admin costs, Fundraising, Uncategorized
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What philanthropy can learn from Alan Turing
This article was first published in Spears Wealth Management Philanthropists can learn a lot from the quiet mathematician who helped win World War II and whose centenary is celebrated this year. Alan Turing and the geniuses at Bletchley Park weren’t … Continue reading
Posted in Effective giving, Uncategorized
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Why I’m delighted to join a Board of the US Center* for Effective Philanthropy
The primary constraint on the effectiveness of philanthropy is that, “The problems of philanthropy are not experienced as problems by the philanthropists”, as Katherine Fulton of the Monitor Institute rather brilliantly pointed out. Those ‘problems of philanthropy’ include what donors support … Continue reading
How philanthropic money makes major change: Moving the tanker
This article was written with Jeff Mosenkis and first published by Alliance Magazine. ‘We are a tiny, tiny little organization,’ says Bill Gates about the largest foundation that the world has ever seen. He’s right: the Gates Foundation’s annual grantmaking is only a tiny … Continue reading
Posted in Effective giving, Impact & evaluation, Uncategorized
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Development Controversies Are A Sign of Sophistication
This article, written with Professor Dean Karlan of Yale University, appeared in Stanford Social Innovation Review. Public debate about two prominent poverty-alleviation programs shows that over the past 15 years international development has become much more scientific. The international development … Continue reading
Posted in Impact & evaluation
Tagged aid, charity, cochrane, development, deworming, effectiveness, giving, impact, impact assessment, international development, philanthropy, science, worms
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Has the worm turned on deworming?
The world-renowned Cochrane Collaboration has recently published a systematic review of the evidence about mass programmes to treat children in less developed countries for intestinal worms. It found that “deworming children seems like a good idea, but the evidence for … Continue reading
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