Timeline of GiveWell

This is a timeline of GiveWell, a United States non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization based in San Francisco. Among the many charity evaluators, GiveWell stands out as a rating service that complements classic quantitative measures. The organization has reviewed over 500 charities. According to nonprofit 80,000 hours, GiveWell is the world’s leading charity evaluator.

Sample questions

The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:

• What are some strategies conducted by GiveWell in order to optimize results?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Strategy".
  • You will see a miscellaneous list of events including priority relocations, change of direction, plans, and experiments.
• What are some significant fundings received by GiveWell?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Funding".
  • You will see a number of grants awarded by donors.
• What are some significant grantmaking allocations recommended by GiveWell?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Grantmaking".
  • You will see a number of discretionary grants allocated by GiveWell and many grants awarded by Good Ventures to charities through GiveWell recommendations.
• What are the several charities being top ranked by GiveWell across the years?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Charity ranking".
  • You will see standout names like Against Malaria Foundation, GiveDirectly, and Malaria Consortium.
• What is the composition of the staff and what are the different roles?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Staff".
• Which countries have been visited by members of the GiveWell staff and what was the purpose of the visit?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Site visit".
  • You will see a number of countries where evaluated charities conduct work, mostly in Africa.
• What are some illustrative versions of GiveWell's Cost-Effectiveness Analyses that have been published across the years?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "Cost-effectiveness analysis".
  • For the number of versions per year, see the Tables section.
• What are events reflecting the impact of GiveWell in the media and among notable people?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "External citation".
  • You will see mostly articles citing the charity evaluator.
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "External review".
  • You will see publications focusing on GiveWell
• What are some important interviews conducted to people from GiveWell?
  • Sort the full timeline by "Event type" and look for the group of rows with value "interview".
  • You will see a number of interviews, especially to Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld.
• How much money has been moved through GiveWell recommendations across the years?
  • See the tables section for details.

Big picture

Period	Development summary	More details
2006–2008	Initial years	GiveWell starts conducting its grant application process. Initial struggles in founding are experienced, with very little money moved through the website. Some controversies emerge in the leadership.
2009–2010	Stabilization	GiveWell achieves growth in money moved. GiveWell staff begin making site visits to the areas served by current and potential top charities.
2011–2012	Partnership	Good Ventures is formed and starts injecting money. Annual cycles are standardized.
2013–2014	Relocation	GiveWell moves to the San Francisco Bay Area, where people have become strong supporters of effective altruism. GiveWell Labs grows in this period.
2015 onward	Reorganization	A spectacular growth in money moved through recommendations is experienced in this period. GiveWell Labs separates from GiveWell, renaming as Open Philanthropy Project.

Highlights by year

Year	Event
2007	GiveWell launches. In the first year, fifty-nine organizations apply for GiveWell grants, with fifteen being considered to produce adequate information about their activities. Population Services International (PSI) is announced as first recommended charity, and becomes the recipient of GiveWell's first substantial donation.
2008	GiveWell moves US$35,021 through its website, and receives 130 donations.
2009	GiveWell decides to rate only charities that meet a minimal standard of transparency. The evaluator moves US$143,013 through its website (A 308% increase from the previous year). The number of donations reaches 665 (a 412% increase from 2008).
2010	GiveWell manages to track over US$1.5 million in donations to top charities, compared to just over $1 million in 2009. Its website traffic nearly doubles compared to the previous year, and donations through the website nearly triples. The evaluator moves US$399,456 through its website (a 179% increase from 2009), whereas the number of donations reaches 976 (a 47% growth from the previous year).
2011	A strong growth is experienced during the year. GiveWell tracks over US$5 million to top charities, compared to about US$1.5 million in 2010. Its website reaches US$1,305,089 in movement (a 227% increase from 2010), whereas its number of donations more than triples to 3,099 (a 218% growth from the previous year). In 2011 GiveWell broadens its search on charitable organizations to include flag promising charities, based on additional characteristics. The set of heuristics for flagging charities worth investigating further is partially developed by incorporating research and previous heuristics from the 2009 report.
2012	GiveWell starts searching for organizations working on immunization, nutrition and other global health programs. The evaluator identifies three top priorities for the year: to make significant progress on GiveWell Labs; find more top charities under the same basic framework as our existing recommendations; and expand its team.
2013	GiveWell develops a cause selection framework, getting basic context for assessing causes within policy-oriented philanthropy and scientific research funding.
2014	GiveWell tracks 27.8 million dollars moved to its recommended charities, about 60% more than in 2013. The total number of donors giving to GiveWell's recommended charities or to GiveWell unrestricted would not grow significantly (up 9% to about 9,300). Many new donors who gave less than $1,000 in 2013 would not give again in 2014, but among those who gave $10,000 or more in 2013, a higher proportion would give again in 2014.
2015	GiveWell tracks approximately 100 million dollars in donations going to its recommended charities as a result of its research.
2015–2016	GiveWell seeks to expand top charity room for more funding and consider alternatives to its top charities by inviting other groups that work on deworming, net distributions, and micronutrient fortification to apply. This would lead to adding Sightsavers' deworming program, the END Fund's deworming program, Project Healthy Children, and Food Fortification Initiative to GiveWell's lists.
2017	The Open Philanthropy Project becomes an independent entity.
2018	GiveWell tracks US$141 million in money moved in donations to its recommended charities or through its Incubation Grants program. In the same year, the GiveWell moves US$65 million to its top charities.
2019	GiveWell processes US$54.1 million in donations.

Numerical and visual data

Google Scholar

The following table summarizes per-year mentions on Google Scholar as of December 18, 2021.

Year	"GiveWell"
2007	2
2008	14
2009	18
2010	37
2011	38
2012	60
2013	83
2014	109
2015	121
2016	144
2017	138
2018	112
2019	146
2020	162

Growth of GiveWell full-time staff, June 2010 – August 2016.

Wikipedia views

The image below shows Wikipedia views from December 2007 for desktop, and from July 2015 (see red vertical line) for mobile web, mobile app, desktop spider, and mobile web spider; to March 2020.

Google Trends

The comparative chart below shows Google Trends data for GiveWell (Non-profit) and GiveWell (Search term) from January 2007 to February 2021, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.

Google Ngram Viewer

The chart below shows Google Ngram Viewer data for GiveWell from 2007 to 2019.

Tables

The table below shows money moved by category, in US$ millions.

Year	Incubation grants	Good ventures to recommended charities	All other money moved	Total
2011	3	1.1	0	4.1
2012	6.4	3	0	9.4
2013	8.7	9.3	0.1	18.1
2014	16.7	15.1	0.3	32.1
2015	43.4	70.4	0.5	114.3
2016	41.5	50.4	13.3	105.2
2017	45.7	75.1	15.8	136.6
2018	61	64	15.9	140.9

The table below shows growth of GiveWell staff, June 2010 – August 2016. ‘Num’ is the number of full-time staff, ‘Diff’ is the difference in ‘Num’ relative to the previous month and is given in the form (−x,y), where x is the number full-time staff that left and y is the number of full-time staff that joined.

Date	Num	Diff
2010-06-09	4
2011-06-04	4	(−1,+1)
2011-09-25	5	(−0,+1)
2012-01-02	4	(−1,+0)
2012-02-08	5	(−0,+1)
2012-07-19	8	(−0,+3)
2013-01-13	6	(−2,+0)
2013-04-30	7	(−0,+1)
2013-08-15	8	(−1,+2)
2013-09-28	10	(−0,+2)
2013-12-14	11	(−0,+1)
2014-07-13	12	(−0,+1)
2014-11-03	18	(−0,+6)
2015-02-01	18	(−1,+1)
2015-05-01	18	(−1,+1)
2015-06-16	23	(−0,+5)
2015-08-16	24	(−0,+1)
2015-10-01	30	(−0,+6)
2015-10-31	32	(−0,+2)
2015-11-22	31	(−1,+0)
2015-12-15	32	(−1,+2)
2016-03-10	31	(−2,+1)
2016-06-25	35	(−2,+6)
2016-07-23	37	(−1,+3)
2016-08-13	36	(−2,+1)

Growth of GiveWell and Open Phil since September 2016

Date	GW ∩ OP	GW ∖ OP	OP ∖ GW
2016-09-10	2	18	20
2016-10-01	2(−0,+0)	19(−0,+1)	20(−0,+0)
2016-11-04	2(-0,+0)	18(−1,+0)	20(−0,+0)
2016-12-05	2(−0,+0)	18(−0,+0)	20(−0,+0)
2017-01-05	2(−0,+0)	17(−1,+0)	20(−0,+0)
2017-02-05	2(−0,+0)	15(−2,+0)	21(−0,+1)
2017-03-08	2(−0,+0)	14(−1,+0)	21(−1,+1)
2017-04-20	2(−0,+0)	16(−0,+2)	21(−0,+0)
2017-05-05	2(−0,+0)	16(−0,+0)	21(−0,+0)
2017-06-05	2(−0,+0)	16(−0,+0)	20(−1,+0)
2017-07-05	1(−1,+0)	16(−0,+0)	23(−0,+3)
2017-08-05	1(−0,+0)	16(−0,+0)	24(−0,+1)
2017-09-06	1(−0,+0)	16(−0,+0)	22(−2,+0)
2017-10-07	1(−0,+0)	16(−0,+0)	22(−0,+0)
2017-11-06	1(−0,+0)	18(−0,+2)	22(−0,+0)
2017-12-05	1(−0,+0)	19(−0,+1)	22(−0,+0)
2018-01-05	1(−0,+0)	19(−0,+0)	22(−0,+0)
2018-02-06	1(−0,+0)	18(−1,+0)	21(−1,+0)
2018-03-06	0(−1,+0)	19(−0,+1)	21(−0,+0)

The table below shows the number of versions per year of GiveWell's Cost-Effectiveness Analyses.

Year	Num
2012	1
2013	1
2014	1
2015	1
2016	2
2017	5
2018	16
2019	6

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
1999	November 30	Prelude (website registration)	givewell.org is registered (by a different organization).
2003	July 4	Prelude (website registration)	givewell.com is registered (by a different organization).
2003		Prelude	Holden Karnofsky graduates from Harvard with a degree in Social Studies. Karnofsky would spend the next several years in the hedge fund industry.
2004		Prelude	Elie Hassenfeld graduates from Columbia University with a degree in Religion. As well as Karnofsky, Hassenfeld would spend the next several years in the hedge fund industry.
2006		Prelude	Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, working at a hedge fund in Connecticut, set up an informal “charity club” with colleagues, to help them make informed decisions about their giving. Each person would pick a cause and then research the best charities working on that cause, evaluating them based on data and performance metrics. Hassenfeld and Karnofsky find this work so satisfying that it would ultimately lead them to create GiveWell.
2006	November 19	Online community	givewell.net is registered.
2006	November 25	Content creation	Probably the earliest GiveWell wiki edit is made on this date. The wiki would later be shut down.
2007	April 7	Publication	GiveWell publishes The Case for the Clear Fund, its so called original business plan, written mostly to solicit the support and feedback of its existing contacts.
2007	Midyear	Official launch	GiveWell is founded by Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, with the purpose of evaluating, ranking, and recommending charities, focussing on evidence of effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, transparency, self-monitoring and need for funding. Other co-founders include Bob Elliott.
2007	?	Recommendation	After conducting an open grant application process and reviewing 59 applications in global health and development, GiveWell announces the first recommendations: Population Services International (PSI), which markets and distributes life-saving materials (mostly condoms and insecticide treated bednets); Partners in Health (PIH), which creates comprehensive health programs (hospital, health center, and community health workers) in disadvantaged, generally rural, areas in the developing world; and Interplast, which devotes to correcting deformities requiring surgery (such as cleft lip and palate deformities), both through direct treatment and through support of local doctors. These recommendations would be supplanted by GiveWell's 2009 end-of-year recommendations and none of these charities would return to GiveWell's top charities list after that.
2007	December	Controversy	Holden Karnofsky is discovered posting a question about GiveWell to community weblog MetaFilter using another individual's name, and then posting an answer about the organization with his own name but without disclosing his affiliation with GiveWell. Negative publicity would arise, leading Karnofsky to resign from the role of executive director, though he would later be reinstated. This would be one among several "astroturfing" incidents in which Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld would participate over the time period; GiveWell would later post what they claim to be a full list of such incidents on their website as well as a FAQ on GiveWell and astroturfing.
2007	December 20	External citation	Stephanie Strom at The New York Times publishes article entitled "2 Young Hedge-Fund Veterans Stir Up the World of Philanthropy", featuring GiveWell and its founders.
2007	December 20	External citation	Rachel Emma Silverman and Sally Beatty at The Wall Street Journal publish article highlighting GiveWell among WSJ resources for donors.
2007	December 20	Interview	Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld are interviewed by CNBC.
2007	December 24	Interview	Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld are interviewed by NPR.
2008	January 3	Content creation	The article GiveWell is created at Wikipedia.
2008	January 3, 6, 11	Controversy	The Clear Fund Board Meeting of January 3 is focused on discussion of the astroturfing / inappropriate marketing by GiveWell in December 2007, and leads to Karnofsky resigning from the executive director role and his position on the board. As followup, the board publishes two statements that are posted to the GiveWell blog on January 6 and January 11 respectively.
2008	June 19	Publication	GiveWell's first-year review is published. The review evaluates GiveWell's performance on four goals: Research (B+), Website (B), Publicity (C, mainly due to the aggressive marketing tactics including Karnofsky's Metafilter promotion), and startup hurdles (B+).
2008	August 9	Strategy	At a board meeting, GiveWell board members agree that their top priority for the coming year is money moved, with research as a secondary priority.
2008	September 14	Online community	GiveWell mailing list on Yahoo! Groups launches.
2008	November 17	Strategy	GiveWell publishes its Change of Direction, based on stuff discussed in the August 2008 board meeting as well as further updates since then. The main updates are in the direction of believing that it's more important to focus on research than on money moved for the near term.
2008	December 10	Interview	Holden Karnofsky is interviewed by NPR on the importance of researching for donations.
2009	January	Team	GiveWell Board of Directors' member Ari Herman joins the organization.
2009	March	External citation	Australian philosopher Peter Singer publishes The Life You Can Save. Singer writes: When I speak about why we ought to be doing more to help the world's poorest people — something I do often — the most frequent question I get is: how can we know that our donation will really help the poor? Until GiveWell came along, it was difficult to give a convincing answer to that question. Previous charity-rating organizations just looked at how much of a charity's income went to program expenses, rather than administration - and it doesn't take much thought to realize that that figure tells you nothing about how effective the charity's programs are. GiveWell has filled a huge gap, and at the same time has started a major trend towards greater transparency and demonstrated cost-effectiveness in the charitable world. A review of the book by William Easterly uses GiveWell's difficulties getting effectiveness information from charities to push back against Singer's claims of a clear moral obligation similar to that of saving a drowning child. In a review on the GiveWell blog, Holden Karnofsky agrees with Singer and also partly with Easterly's criticism, concluding: It’s just that “doing more” has to mean more than “giving more.” Picking your charity – and doing your part in holding it accountable – is at least as important as giving generously. We’re trying to make this task easier for time-strapped donors: if you put credence in our analysis, it can mean simply basing your giving on our recommendations (informally, or formally via GiveWell Advance Donation).
2009	July	Team	Natalie Crispin joins GiveWell as a Research Analyst.
2009	?	Team	GiveWell co-founder and Board Chairman Bob Elliott departs from the organization.
2009	?	Review	GiveWell conducts reviews of websites from over 300 charitable organizations, aiming to find ones that either implemented priority programs or published, on their websites, meaningful evaluations of their programs.
2009	?	Grantmaking	GiveWell conducts a grant application process for organizations running economic empowerment programs in the developing world. The $250,000 grant is offered to organizations providing economic empowerment programs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
2009	September 8	External citation	New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof co-authors Half the Sky with his wife Sheryl WuDunn. The book points to GiveWell and Charity Navigator as donor resources.
2009	October 3		A blog post on the GiveWell blog discusses the idea of cash transfers as a benchmark, i.e., the idea that donations should pass the test of being more cost-effective than donating cash to beneficiaries. The post says: "In concept, we think it’s a great idea (and we proposed something similar for evaluations of U.S. charities). However, one major issue for individual donors is simply that we know of no charity that focuses on delivering cash directly to low-income people." This is a few years before the launch of future GiveWell top charity GiveDirectly that would be focused precisely on delivering cash directly to low-income people. The concept of cash as a benchmark would inform the thinking of GiveWell and its spinoff Open Philanthropy over the coming years, with the effectiveness of marginal donations to GiveWell top charities being reported in terms of their multiplier over cash.
2009	November 8	External citation	GiveWell is recommended by a Wall Street Journal article on resources for evaluating charities, along with Charity Navigator and GuideStar. Whereas Charity Navigator is described as covering 5,400 nonprofits and including "executive compensation, efficiency, organizational capacity, donor privacy policies, and administrative, fund-raising and program expenses", and GuideStar is described as having "nonprofit reports and tax forms for almost two million charities", GiveWell is described as having "in-depth information on individual charities and causes" and focusing on "how well programs work and their impact on the people they serve."
2009	Late months	Strategy	GiveWell begins to use "scenario analysis" asking how a charity's activities would change at different levels of total unrestricted funding. This approach is expected to allow GiveWell to check back later and see the extent to which actual activities were in line with actual funding.
2009	December 29, 30, 31	Recommendation	GiveWell recommends VillageReach (immunizations) and Stop TB Partnership} (tuberculosis) as its top charities for 2009. The post announcing the recommendations says: We ask you, as a donor, to turn down some great pitches – “Your interest-free loan will help this person escape poverty forever,” “You can give a cow to a poor family for Christmas,” etc. – and give instead to charities that aren’t terribly good at storytelling. [...] But if you give to one of our top charities, you really can save (or dramatically change) a human life.
2010	January 20	Interview	Elie Hassenfeld is interviewed by CNN about using overhead to evaluate charities.
2010	January 25	Interview	Holden Karnofsky is interviewed by CNN in a segment on effective giving.
2010	February	Site visit	Holden Karnofsky visits two of GiveWell's recommended charities in site, the Small Enterprise Foundation in South Africa and VillageReach in Mozambique.
2010	February 19	Publication	GiveWell's 2009 Review and Plan is published.
2010	May and June	Online community	Over this period, GiveWell acquires the givewell.org domain and migrates its website from www.givewell.net to www.givewell.org, with the former redirecting to the latter. The Wayback Machine snapshots show the following: April 23 shows www.givewell.org under control of its prior owner, May 25 shows www.givewell.org under GiveWell's control but with no content on the home page, and June 14 shows the full home page at www.givewell.org.
2010	June 3	Guest post	The first guest post on GiveWell by a donor is published.
2010	August–November	Site visit	GiveWell's staff visits Mumbai, India from mid-August to the end of November, and visits a number of organizations in Mumbai and other cities in the country.
2010	November 20	External citation	Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times writes: Philanthropy has made huge strides in the last couple of decades, with far more emphasis on cost-effective interventions that are scalable to bring about change. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped lead the way, and Web sites like Givewell.org guide small-time donors. CharityNavigator.org ranks organizations partly by administrative expenses, which are less important than a charity’s impact on the needy, but it is trying to develop more useful information about impact.
2010	November 30	External citation	GiveWell is featured by USA Today as a donor resource.
2010		Charity ranking	GiveWell publishes its top charities. VillageReach (immunizations), Stop TB Partnership (tuberculosis), and Against Malaria Foundation (malaria) are ranked at the top among international charities. Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), Nurse-Family Partnership, and Invest in Kids are ranked as top United States charities.
2010	Year round	Money tracking	GiveWell tracks over US$1.5 million in donations to top charities, compared to just over US$1 million in 2009.
2011	c. January 28	Online community	givewell.com starts redirecting to givewell.org.
2011	February	Publication	GiveWell's 2010 Review and Plan is published.
2011	March 16	External citation	GiveWell is cited by The New York Times in an article about donating in the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
2011	April	Team	Good Ventures co–founder Cari Tuna (who is in a relationship with, and would later marry, Facebook co–founder Dustin Moskovitz) joins the board of GiveWell. Tuna is president of Good Ventures, a foundation started by her and Moskovitz to give away Moskovitz's acquired wealth through Facebook, and GiveWell recommendations are being used to inform some of the donation decisions. This relationship would lead to GiveWell Labs that would morph into the Open Philanthropy Project, later shortened to Open Philanthropy, an independent entity directing the bulk of Good Ventures' money, and a major funder of both GiveWell top charities and several other cause areas.
2011	September 8	Partnership	GiveWell Labs is announced as a new initiative within GiveWell. A collaboration between private foundation Good Ventures and GiveWell, the purpose of it is to “systematically examine a wide variety of causes and opportunities with the intention of identifying the ones which could use additional money ... to produce the best long-run outcomes.” GiveWell Labs woud morph into the Open Philanthropy Project, later shortened to Open Philanthropy, an independent entity directing the bulk of Good Ventures' money, and a major funder of both GiveWell top charities and several other cause areas.
2011	October	Site visit	GiveWell staff visits five organizations in Malawi and four in India as part of its research process to identify top-rated charities.
2011	November	Charity ranking	GiveWell announces its 2011 top charities: Against Malaria Foundation (which focuses on distribution of insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria) Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (which focuses on deworming) Other GiveWell's standout organizations include: GiveDirectly (Cash grants to poor households in Kenya) Innovations for Poverty Action (Research on how to fight poverty and promote development) KIPP Houston ((United States) Charter schools facing budget cuts) Nyaya Health [now know as Possible] (Health care in rural Nepal) Pratham (Primary education in India) Small Enterprise Foundation (Microloans for women in South Africa)
2011	November 20	External citation	Gareth Cook at The Boston Globe writes: As we enter into the prime giving season, GiveWell provides a valuable service for the donor who has few preconceptions and just wants to make the world better.
2011	November 23	External citation	Alexandra Wolfe at Bloomberg Bussinesweek writes: When bonus season came around, instead of deciding whether to buy a new suit, car, or a Caribbean vacation, hedge fund analysts Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, both then 25, agonized over which charities to donate to. They put so much time and effort into figuring it out that they eventually left their jobs… to start GiveWell, a nonprofit that evaluates charities with hedge-fund–level rigor.
2011	December 3	External citation	Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times features GiveWell recommending its top charity and citing GiveWell's research.
2012	February	Publication	GiveWell's 2011 Review and Plan is published.
2012	June	Partnership	Private foundation Good Ventures (founded by Cari Tuna and her husband, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz) announces a close partnership with GiveWell. The joint collaboration would later lead to the formation of the Open Philanthropy Project, whose mission is to figure out how, exactly to figure out the best possible way to use large sums of money to do as much good as possible.
2012	September 28	External citation	Paul Sullivan at The New York Times publishes an article on measuring the impact of giving, featuring GiveWell. The article talks about GiveWell's disillusionment with finding cost-effective charities for US equality of opportunity, and their success at finding cost-effective opportunities in global health, specifically the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF). Karnofsky, who is interviewed for the article, notes how the GiveWell review process may have influenced AMF to do post-distribution monitoring to make sure that the bed nets they distributed were being used.
2012	November 13	External citation	William MacAskill from Giving What We Can publishes post enitled "Researching What We Should", which highlights GiveWell as top evaluator in some areas of research.
2012	November	Site visit	GiveWell staff travels to Kenya as part of its research process to identify top-rated charities, with the primary purpose of visiting GiveDirectly. The staff also visits two projects run by Evidence Action.
2012	November	Charity ranking	GiveWell announces its updated top charities: Against Malaria Foundation GiveDirectly (which helps families living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them via mobile phone) Schistosomiasis Control Initiative
2012	December 5	External citation	Tina Rosemberg at The New York Times features GiveWell in an article on giving effectively.
2012	December 19	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes post discussing how they see the relative “bang-for-the-buck” – good accomplished per dollar spent – of three interventions: distribution of insecticide-treated nets to fight malaria, unconditional direct cash transfers, and treating children for parasites (soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis).
2012	December 24	External review	William MacAskill from Giving What We Can publishes post enitled "Some General Concerns About Givewell" which summarizes a list of concerns and recommendations on a variety of points, including long run effects, external evaluation, and meaning of GiveWell's labels and rating.
2012	December 27	External citation	Ken Stern at The Washington Post writes: On average, Americans spend more time watching television in one day than they do researching charities in an entire year. Finding good charities takes time. It means using the few organizations, such as GiveWell, that do in-depth studies of charities' effectiveness. And it means remembering that the best organizations, charitable or otherwise, are built on more than a good story or a charismatic leader.
2013	January	Administration	GiveWell completes moving its offices from New York City to San Francisco.
2013	February	Online community	The GiveWell mailing list on Yahoo! Groups is discontinued. Around this time, the organization begins posting more frequent research updates to its website and blog.
2013	February, March	Publication	GiveWell's 2012 Review and Plan is published.
2013	May 31	External citation	Dylan Matthews at The Washington Post publishes an article featuring GiveWell as a resource for donors.
2013	June 19	Interview	KQED-FM radio station features GiveWell research analyst Alexander Berger on a segment about how to decide where to donate to charity.
2013	June	Funding	Good Ventures awards a grant of $20,000 to GiveWell to support its capacity to research the history of philanthropy and funding opportunities in policy advocacy.
2013	August 11	External citation	Peter Singer cites GiveWell in a New York Times op-ed for its "serious evaluation of charities helping people in extreme poverty."
2013	October	Site visit	GiveWell staff travels to India as part of its research process to identify top-rated charities, with the primary purpose of visiting the Deworm the World Initiative, led by Evidence Action.
2013	November 4	External review	Nick Beckstead at 80,000 Hours publishes blog post entitled "Thoughts on my experience working at GiveWell". Beckstead writes: Who would be a good fit to work at GiveWell? Someone who likes research, pays a lot of attention to detail, is obsessed with effective altruism, enjoys (or at least can handle) highly critical feedback, is extremely intelligent and hardworking, is willing to work for very low pay relative to their earning potential, is OK with limited job security, enjoys intellectually challenging work, and likes doing a variety of different things.
2013	December 12	Publication	GiveWell publishes its first staff member donations post, starting an annual tradition of such publications.
2013	December 15	External citation	Farhad Manjoo at The Wall Street Journal writes: GiveWell [...] has completely changed the way I think about donating money.
2013	December	Charity ranking	GiveWell announces its top charities for giving season 2014: GiveDirectly Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Deworm the World Initiative (new addition)
2014	?	Strategy	GiveWell solicits applications from several organizations running priority programs and evaluates two organizations that have conducted randomized controlled trials of their own programs.
2014	January	Grantmaking	Non-profit New Incentives receives a US$100,000 grant from San Francisco-based philantropic organization Good Ventures –with input from GiveWell. The grant is the first of a set of grants that aims to increase the number of contenders for GiveWell's top charity status. New Incentives is selected for the grant because it runs a priority program, is committed to transparency, and is at an early stage of development, according to GiveWell.
2014	February, March	Publication	GiveWell's 2013 Review and Plan is published.
2014	March	Funding	Good Ventures awards a grant of US$240,000 to GiveWell for general operating support, with the purpose to increase the availability of high-quality information and analysis about charities and giving opportunities.
2014	April 25	External citation	Ron Lieber at The New York Times features GiveWell in an article on the challenges of giving effectively.
2014	August	Reorganization	GiveWell Labs, an internal project of GiveWell, morphs into the Open Philanthropy Project, a joint venture of GiveWell and Good Ventures, and gets a separate website.
2014	September 7	External citation	Tim Harford on BBC Radio 4 program More or less features GiveWell's research as an alternative to a social media fundraising campaign.
2014	September	Grantmaking	Good Ventures makes a US$34,382 grant to IDinsight, as part of GiveWell's project to support the development of top charities.
2014	September	Study	GiveWell completes a medium-depth writeup on geoengineering research – large-scale interventions in the climate to attempt to reduce climate change or its impacts – focusing on research around efforts to artificially cool the planet. The evaluator finds no funders – governmental or philanthropic – spending large amounts in this area at the moment, and the field appears relatively small with relatively little in funding.
2014	October	Site visit	GiveWell staff travels to Burkina Faso and Uganda as part of its research process to identify top-rated charities, with the primary purpose of visiting Development Media International and Living Goods.
2014	November	Charity ranking	GiveWell announces its top charities for giving season 2014: Against Malaria Foundation GiveDirectly Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Deworm the World Initiative Other GiveWell's standout charities include Development Media International (DMI), Iodine Global Network (IGN), The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) - Universal Salt Iodization (USI) program, and Living Goods.
2014	December	Research	GiveWell completes an investigation of one new intervention (salt iodization), and makes substantial progress on several others (maternal and neonatal tetanus immunization campaigns, mass drug administration for lymphatic filariasis, and vitamin A supplementation).
2014	Year round	Money tracking	GiveWell tracks US$27.8 million in “money moved” to its recommended charities.
2015	March	Grantmaking	Good Ventures, with input from GiveWell, awards US$100,000 grant to New Incentives, for general operating support.
2015	March, April	Publication	GiveWell's 2014 Review and Plan is published.
2015	May 23	External citation	Neil Webb at The Economist publishes article on impact-driven philanthropy entitled "Doing good by doing well", featuring GiveWell.
2015	April	Partnership	Open Philanthropy Project announces a partnership with Kaitlyn Trigger and Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram).
2015	June 15	External citation	Derek Thompson at The Atlantic writes: Philosophically, the most difficult task facing GiveWell is putting the vast spectrum of human suffering into numbers. It is, in a way, a math problem, but one laden with value judgments, about which reasonable people can disagree.
2015	July	Site visit	GiveWell staff travels to Ethiopia to visit the work on universal salt iodization being carried out by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.
2015	September	Grantmaking	With GiveWell reccommendation, Good Ventures grants US$200,000 to the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to support two randomized controlled trials in India and Pakistan that would test whether providing non-cash incentives increases child immunization rates.
2015	October 23	External citation	Alexandra Zaslow at Today publishes article about Julia Wise and Jeff Kaufman, a couple notable for donating half of income every year to charity. Wise and Kaufman cite GiveWell as their source for picking out charities.
2015	November 18	Online community	GiveWell Community launches as a Facebook group.
2015	November	Charity ranking	GiveWell announces its top charities for giving season 2015: Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Deworm the World Initiative GiveDirectly Development Media International (DMI), The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s Universal Salt Iodization program (GAIN – USI), Iodine Global Network (IGN), and Living Goods are recognized as standout charities.
2015	November	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes its 2015 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses. Final analyses are conducted on long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, deworming, cash transfers, and iodine fortification; and Development Media International.
2016	March	Grantmaking	Following GiveWell’s general effort to support the creation of future top charities, Good Ventures grants US$812,351 to Evidence Action to support the development of additional programs. These funds are expected to develop and implement a program in Bangladesh. In the same month, Good Ventures grants US$300,000 to New Incentives to support its conditional cash transfers program.
2016	April, May	Publication	GiveWell's 2015 Review and Plan is published.
2016	May	Grantmaking	As part of GiveWell’s effort, Good Ventures grants US$6,400,000 to non-profit Results for Development to support its Market Dynamics practice area’s pneumonia treatment program in Tanzania. The fund is expected to increase use of amoxicillin, the WHO-recommended first-line treatment for childhood pneumonia. In the same month Good Ventures grants US$350,000 to Innovations for Poverty Action to support a randomized controlled trial.
2016	June–October	Grantmaking	Following GiveWell’s guidelines, Good Ventures grants $1,985,000 in unrestricted funding over three years to IDinsight, a development-consulting organization that serves mission-driven organizations to facilitate evidence-based decision-making. The fund is expected to allow IDinsight to scale its model of supporting and evaluating development interventions, ideally (in the long term) providing us with research that GiveWell would be able to use in its work to recommend top charities. In October, Good Ventures grants an additional US$314,752 to IDinsight.
2016	August	Grantmaking	Good Ventures makes a grant of US$25 million to GiveDirectly on GiveWell’s recommendation, with GiveDirectly’s goals for the grant consisting in expanding its ability to raise funds from donors not influenced by GiveWell’s recommendation and collaborating with large aid institutions or governments to address their questions about cash transfers.
2016	August	Site visit	GiveWell staff travels to the Greater Accra Region, Ghana, with the primary purpose of visiting the Against Malaria Foundation and Sightsavers.
2016	September 14	Online community	GiveWell launches new website.
2016	November	Grantmaking	Good Ventures grants $368587 to New Incentives as part of GiveWell's work to support the creation of new top charities. In the same month Good Ventures grants $200,000 to Charity Science: Health to support the first year of its work setting up a charity to send SMS immunization reminders in India.
2016	November	Charity ranking	Givewell announces its top charities for giving season 2016: Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative END Fund for work on deworming (added this year) Malaria Consortium for work on seasonal malaria chemoprevention (added this year) Sightsavers for work on deworming (added this year) Deworm the World Initiative, led by Evidence Action GiveDirectly Other charities worthy of special recognition by GiveWell include Development Media International (DMI), Food Fortification Initiative (FFI), The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s Universal Salt Iodization program (GAIN – USI), Iodine Global Network (IGN), Living Goods, and Project Healthy Children.
2016	November 28	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the Final Analysis of its 2016 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses document, which is conducted on long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, deworming, cash transfers, and seasonal malaria chemoprevention.
2016	Year round	Money tracking	According to a delayed report posted in September 2017, GiveWell manages to track a total of US$91.6 million during 2016 given to its top charities as a direct result of research. In the same year, Good Ventures made GiveWell Incubation Grants totaling US$13.3 million.
2017	January	Grantmaking	As part of GiveWell's Incubation Grants to support the development of potential future top charities and improve the quality of our recommendations, Good Ventures grants $900,000 to the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development, and Evaluation for its Road Safety Campaign.
2017	January, February	Site visit	GiveWell staff travels to Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo; and Kenya with the purpose of visiting top charity the END Fund and 2017 top charity contender Zusha!, a project of the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation.
2017	February	Site visit	As part of a broader partnership with GiveWell, IDinsight staff travels to Nigeria to visit New Incentives.
2017	February–March	Strategy	GiveWell runs a small experiment with a few ads on FiveThirtyEight’s Politics podcast and Vox’s The Weeds. Having spent approximately $20,000 on ads for the initial experiment, Givewell asks donors who give via GiveWell's website to tell the evaluator where they learned about GiveWell when they donate. One of the findings is that donors generally find out about GiveWell during the course of the year, but donate in December. The experiment is later expanded, spending approximately $100,000 on podcast ads.
2017	March, April	Publication	GiveWell's 2016 Review and Plan is published.
2017	April	Grantmaking	Regents of the University of California, Berkeley receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of US$1,104,259 to support the Kenya Life Panel Survey Round 4 (KLPS-4), a follow-up study to assess the long-term impact of deworming on consumption. In the same month, under the incubation grant program, Good Ventures makes a grant of US$2,642,300 to Evidence Action –which expects to strengthen its financial systems, human resources, and information technology, and another grant of US$820,000 to New Incentives, which plans to use these funds to support its work on conditional cash transfers to incentivize child immunization.
2017	April 3	Grantmaking	GiveWell announces plan to allocate US$4.4 million to the Against Malaria Foundation and US$0.5 million of the funding it received for granting to the Deworm the World Initiative. Such allocations have their source in US$4.9 million GiveWell received in funding for making grants at its discretion.
2017	May	Grantmaking	IDinsight receives an Incubation Grant of US$2,321,617 to support its GiveWell-embedded team for the next twelve months. This grant is in addition to June 2016 and October 2016 GiveWell Incubation Grants to IDinsight, a company that supports and conducts rigorous evaluations of development interventions, often involving randomized controlled trials (RCTs), with an explicit focus on partnering with funders and policy makers to use data to inform key strategy decisions. IDinsight's "decision-focused evaluation" is considered aligned with GiveWell's goals.
2017	May 20	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the first version of its 2017 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses. The universal basic income (UBI) program is dropped from the GiveDirectly CEA.
2017	June 1	Reorganization	The Open Philanthropy Project becomes an independent organization.
2017	June	Grantmaking	The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of US$18,000 to investigate the feasibility of conducting a high-quality follow-up study on Stoltzfus et al. 1997, a deworming evaluation conducted in Tanzania in the mid-1990s.
2017	June	Team	Holden Karnofsky departs from GiveWell and assumes rol of CEO of the Open Philanthropy Project.
2017	June–July	Site visit	As part of a broader partnership with GiveWell, IDinsight visits to United Purpose (formerly Concern Universal), an implementing partner of Against Malaria Foundation, in Malawi. In July, IDinsight would observe a 12-month post-distribution check-up of AMF, in Ghana.
2017	July	Grantmaking	Charity Science Health receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of US$357,543 to support its SMS immunization reminder program in India. In the same month, the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California, Berkeley receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of US$492,188, with CEGA planning to use these funds to create a list of previously completed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that could potentially be candidates for follow-up studies analyzing longer-term effects of programs.
2017	August 16	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the second version of its 2017 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses. It includes a series of structural changes to the cost-effectiveness models for Malaria Consortium and the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF).
2017	August	Grantmaking	The Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of $1,336,409 to start work aimed at reducing deaths from deliberate ingestion of pesticides. The funds are planned to start collecting data on pesticide suicides in Nepal and India with the aim of assisting governments in enacting bans on the most lethal pesticides currently used in suicide attempts.
2017	August	Grantmaking	GiveWell announces plan to grant roughly $2.25 million in discretionary funding to the Deworm the World Initiative.
2017	October 27	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the third version of its 2017 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses. This workbook revises the structure of GiveWell's worm intensity data to facilitate engagement.
2017	November	Charity ranking	Givewell announces its top charities for giving season 2017: Against Malaria Foundation Schistosomiasis Control Initiative Malaria Consortium’s seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) program Evidence Action’s Deworm the World Initiative Helen Keller International (HKI)’s vitamin A supplementation (VAS) program Sightsavers’ deworming program END Fund’s deworming program Evidence Action’s No Lean Season program GiveDirectly Standout charities: Development Media International Evidence Action’s Dispensers for Safe Water program Food Fortification Initiative Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s Universal Salt Iodization program Iodine Global Network Living Goods Project Healthy Children
2017	November	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$0.7 million in discretionary grant to Evidence Action's Deworm the World Initiative. The donations were made between July and September 2017.
2017	November 8	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the fourth version of its 2017 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses, which makes several miscellaneous updates to the cost-effectiveness model.
2017	November 27	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the fifth version of its 2017 Cost-Effectiveness Analyses. Among the changes, it presents updated cost figures for most of GiveWell's recommended charities and the implementation of a new process for adjusting cost-effectiveness estimates based on the expected behavior of other funders.
2017	November 27	External citation	Nurith Aizenman at NPR publishes article entitled "On #GivingTuesday, How To Get The Most Bang For Your Charity Buck", featuring GiveWell.
2017	November 28	External citation	Carl Richards at The New York Times publishes guide entitled "How to Make a Personal Plan for Giving" which describes GiveWell as a resource for “The Spreadsheet Method of Giving” (calculating altruistic return on investment).
2017	November 28	Advocacy	Elie Hassenfeld shares his advice for giving effectively in a video from NowThis Politics.
2017	December 4	External citation	Financial blogger Mr. Money Mustache includes GiveWell in his article on tips for giving to charities.
2017	Fourth quarter	Funding	GiveWell receives US$5.6 million in funding for making grants at its discretion.
2017	Year round	Funding	GiveWell receives over US$290,000 in Bitcoin donations.
2018	January 24	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes the first version of its 2018 Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.
2018	March	Grantmaking	Evidence Action Beta receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of US$320,000 to support the Indian government's work on iron and folic acid supplementation.
2018	March	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$5.6 million in discretionary grant to Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. The donations were made between October and December 2017.
2018	May	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$3.0 million in discretionary grant, distributing 70% to Against Malaria Foundation and 30% to Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. The donations were received between January and March 2018.
2018	June 2	External citation	GiveWell is featured by The Economist in an article about effective altruism.
2018	June	Grantmaking	Fortify Health receives a GiveWell Incubation Grant of US$295,217 to start a new program aimed at mass fortification of wheat flour with iron in India.
2018	July 16	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes new version of its 2018 Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, updating the cost per insecticide-treated bed nets (ITN) parameter.
2018	August 10	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes new version of its 2018 Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, updating the cost per child covered in Helen Keller International's vitamin A supplementation program.
2018	August	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$4.1 million in discretionary grant, distributing 70% to Against Malaria Foundation and 30% to Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. The donations were received between April and June 2018.
2018	November	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$1.1 million in discretionary grant to Malaria Consortium's seasonal malaria chemoprevention program. The donations were received between July and September 2018.
2018	November 25	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes updated version of its 2018 Cost-Effectiveness Analysis. Updates include accounting for potential long-term benefits of vitamin A supplementation.
2018	December	Administration	GiveWell updates its donations processing and announces it is accepting donations in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash,Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and 0x.
2018	December 1	External citation	Dylan Matthews at Vox writes: It's of course possible to research charity options yourself, but it's probably better to outsource that labor to a careful, methodologically rigorous charity recommender like GiveWell.
2018	Fourth quarter	Funding	Donors give a combined US$7.6 million in funding to GiveWell for making grants at its discretion.
2018	Year round	Money tracking	GiveWell tracks US$141 million in money moved to its recommended charities and via its Incubation Grants program. The amount is stated to be influenced by GiveWell recommendations.
2018	Year round	Grantmaking	GiveWell moves US$65 million to its top charities.
2019	January 3	Cost-effectiveness analysis	The first version of GiveWell's 2019 Cost-Effectiveness Analysis is published.
2019	February 4	Team	Rob Reich announces his intention to resign from GiveWell's Board of Directors. In his resignation letter, Reich lists his reasons for departure, one of them being his concerns that the "board’s important governance role is not taken seriously enough by GiveWell leadership".
2019	February 13	Grantmaking	GiveWell announces a grantmaking process to look for organizations operating in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh.
2019	March 5	Team	Brigid Slipka announces her intention to resign from GiveWell's Board of Directors. In her resignation letter, Slipka gives a pair of recommendations, to create a nominating committee, chaired by a non-board member, and to increase the board to include experts and representatives of beneficiaries.
2019	March	Strategy	GiveWell announces plan to expand the scope of its research and to roughly double the size of its full-time research staff (from approximately 10 to 20) over the next three years.
2019	March	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$7.6 million in discretionary grant to Malaria Consortium's seasonal malaria chemoprevention program. The donations were received between October and December 2018.
2019	April 1	Team	Rob Reich, Brigid Slipka, and Tom Rutledge resignations become effective. The most common concern reflected in the resignation letters is the argument that the new board would not be well positioned to play a serious role in the organization governance after GiveWell's decision to reduce the size of the board from eight members to five. Hassenfeld replies that the direction GiveWell has chosen is the right one, expressing his belief that it will mean a "more focused, intensely engaged board, and ultimately a more robust, more impactful GiveWell." After the resignations, GiveWell's Board of Directors retains five members: Timothy Ogden (Interim Chair), Cari Tuna, Holden Karnofsky, Julia Wise, and Elie Hassenfeld.
2019	May 10	Administration	Catherine Hollander announces GiveWell plan to move offices from San Francisco to Oakland.
2019	June	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates U$4.7 million in discretionary grant to the Against Malaria Foundation. The donations were received between January and March 2019.
2019	August	Grantmaking	GiveWell allocates US$2.3 million in discretionary grant to the Against Malaria Foundation. The donations were received between April and June 2019.
2019	September	Site visit	GiveWell staff visits Burkina Faso to meet with staff of Malaria Consortium’s seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) program, and observe its work.
2019	November 9	External citation	Allan Saldanha at The Guardian publishes article featuring GiveWell as a leading independent charity evaluator.
2019	November	Strategy	GiveWell offers matching funds to new donors who hear about its work on podcast advertisements. Offering donation matching is expected enable GiveWell to better track the impact of the ads it funds.
2019	November	Grantmaking	GiveWell recommends grants of US$57.3 million to its top charities and standout charities, composed of a recommendation to Open Philanthropy to grant US$54.6 million to GiveWell's top charities and standout charities, and US$2.6 million in grants to top charities at GiveWell's discretion.
2019	November 25	Cost-effectiveness analysis	GiveWell publishes updated workbook containing its cost-effectiveness analysis. This version estimates the cost-effectiveness of funding gaps GiveWell expects its top charities to fill after taking grants it expects Open Philanthropy to make the year into account.
2019	November 26	Charity ranking	GiveWell publishes its 2019 top charities: Malaria Consortium’s seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) program Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) Helen Keller International (HKI)’s vitamin A supplementation program Charities that treat parasitic worm infections, in particular deworming programs (Evidence Action’s Deworm the World Initiative, Sightsavers’ deworming program, END Fund’s deworming program) GiveDirectly
2020	March 26	Publication	Catherine Hollander publishes blog post entitled "The impact of COVID-19 on GiveWell’s plans", in order to inform on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the organization.
2020	May 28	Publication	GiveWell publishes their Plan for 2020, highlighting their focus on three projects: expanding into new areas of research; searching for new, cost-effective funding opportunities in GiveWell's traditional research areas; and building a donor community.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by User:Sebastian.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

See also

• Timeline of nonprofit evaluation
• Timeline of effective altruism

External links

• Official website
• GiveWell executive compensation