Category Archives: Analysing giving

Making charity & philanthropy more evidence-based

Posted on February 18, 2016 by

Giving Evidence’s purpose is improving the effectiveness of charitable giving and charitable work by improving the quality of evidence on which they are based. The changes that we need are very analogous to changes which happened in medicine, in terms of … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Donor behaviour & giving stats, Effective giving | Leave a comment

What makes a helpful reporting & evaluation system? Learning from an outlier

Posted on January 27, 2016 by

Funders’ reporting and evaluation systems are rarely loved: they are more often regarded as compliance or ‘policing’. But not so for the Inter-American Foundation apparently: IAF received better feedback from its grantees on its reporting and evaluation system than have … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Effective giving, Impact & evaluation, meta-research | Leave a comment

Don’t Die of Ignorance

Posted on June 30, 2014 by

This was first published by Third Sector, in Caroline Fiennes’ regular column. It sounds pretty good – a programme that aims to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy by improving the educational opportunities of low-income families through early childhood … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Impact & evaluation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Easy ways for philanthropic donors to see if they’re doing well

Posted on February 26, 2014 by

This article was first  published by the Social Impact Analysts Association. Some skiers are better than others. Some singers are better than others. The same for teaching, nursing and curling. So it seems reasonable to suppose that some people are … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Donor behaviour & giving stats, Effective giving | Leave a comment

Shameful story of Rockefeller and Einstein

Posted on October 24, 2013 by

This was first published by the Huffington Post. 100 years old this year, The Rockefeller Foundation likes to tell the tale of its founders’ responsiveness and foresight: ‘When a young Albert Einstein sent a request for $500 to John D. Rockefeller’s top … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Donor behaviour & giving stats | 2 Comments

Do matched giving schemes work?

Posted on October 8, 2013 by

This article was first published by Philanthropy Impact magazine. Many fundraisers tell us that donors give more if a match is available, that is, somebody else will also give if, and only if, they give.  Fundraisers’ confidence is based largely … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Fundraising, Impact & evaluation | Leave a comment

How should advice on charitable giving be priced?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

Answer: In a way that aligns the advisor’s incentives with those of the beneficiary. But which way does that? Along with many others, I’m often asked to advise donors about finding good charities to support and/or strategies to make their … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin costs, Analysing giving, Donor behaviour & giving stats, Promoting giving | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How do you know if your charity is making any difference? Take control

Posted on January 31, 2012 by

Charities need to understand which parts of their activities are working and which aren’t. But to really understand the charity’s impact, we need to know not only what did happen, but what would have happened without the charity’s work. Imagine a city with … Continue reading →

Posted in Analysing giving, Impact & evaluation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments