Lovely interview, about what constitutes good evidence, which donors is this relevant to, doesn’t requiring evidence impede innovation or encourage donors to focus on short-term outcomes, etc. (Gets into English after about 2 minutes.)

This is the Forbes article which I reference.

Maybe getting donors to give better is cheaper and easier than getting them to give more

Many people look at getting people to give more. Giving Evidence and the Social Enterprise Initiative at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business have been looking at getting donors to give better. Perhaps improving giving will achieve more than increasing it: For instance, the cost of raising capital for charities is about 20-40 per cent, against only about 3-5 per cent for companies, and charities turn away some donors who are fiddly to deal with. It may be easier to reduce that cost of capital than to raise the amount given. Plus, money doesn’t always go where it’s most needed: for example, about 90 per cent of global health spending goes on 10 per cent of the disease burden – maybe those donations can cheaply be re-directed.

Our white paper looks at at (i)what good giving is, i.e., what donor behaviours produce the best outcomes, and (ii)how to persuade/enable/nudge donors to do those behaviours. It collates what is known on these topics, and lays out many unanswered questions which would form a strong research agenda. [The Chicago Booth School of Business was recently ranked by The Economist as the best business school in the world. And its leading centre on decision science is highly relevant since decisions are so integral to giving.]

Continue reading →

Newsflash! Giving Evidence’s Caroline Fiennes has been nominated a ‘best philanthropy advisor’ by Spears Wealth Management magazine, here.

The profile of Caroline (here) says: 

“Caroline Fiennes’ work in philanthropy focuses on making giving as effective as possible by basing it on sound evidence. A physicist in a previous career, Fiennes became interested in the fact that some charities are better than others and wanted to figure out which ones are most effective in order to guide donors to them. This is also true of ways of giving.

The founder of Giving Evidence feels there is ‘often a big mismatch between where the money goes and where it’s needed’, and advises clients on using the available evidence to choose issues and organisations to focus on and support in the most effective ways. Continue reading →

This article first appeared in Third Sector.

Unlike in business – where companies must heed their customers because they’re the sole

From a school wall in Zimbabwe, tweeted by Melinda Gates

source of funds – charities don’t normally get funds from beneficiaries and hence feel no financial pressure to listen to them. A recent report by Médecins Sans Frontières shows the result, recounting the apparent abandonment of war-torn areas and emergency situations by most aid agencies, which seem instead to follow funders’ wishes to operate in safer countries.

It’s tough for beneficiaries to tell an NGO, government or funder directly what they want or what they think of what they’re getting. It’s harder still for would-be beneficiaries. There are few feedback loops in our sector, though there is an outbreak of intriguing work to create more. Continue reading →

This article first published in Third Sector.

Why is so little policy based on sound evidence? Many voluntary organisations, academics and others spend time producing research in order to influence the government. There are some successes – but much policy appears to disregard the evidence.

Mark Henderson is head of communications at the UK’s largest charitable funder, the Wellcome Trust, and author of The Geek Manifesto, which calls for a more scientific approach to policy and politics. He says there’s little political price to be paid when MPs ignore the evidence. He also says that, in their constituencies, most MPs know the business people – who, after all, will ensure that people of influence have the benefit of their views – but rarely know the scientists. They probably don’t know the charity sector people either.

I am an advocate of evidence and hence often in meetings about the importance of getting evidence into policy with organisations such as the Alliance for Useful Evidence, the Institute for Government, the Hewlett Foundation or the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. If Henderson is right, we’re all stuck in an echo chamber and missing a trick. Continue reading →