{ "name": "programs", "description": "Every program, with status and the conditions it treats.", "license": "CC BY 4.0. Cite “Charitology (charitology.org)”.", "generated": "2026-10-26", "data": [ { "id": "cause-census", "path": "/programs/cause-census/", "title": "Cause Census", "group": "Research", "order": 4, "summary": "Explore coverage of 17 cause areas and capture source-linked estimates with units, years, uncertainty and value assumptions.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live cause filters and evidence-capture software are available. Existing mappings are editorial hypotheses; a complete global funding or depth census has not been produced.", "conditions": [ "symptom-trap", "story-bias" ], "firstMilestone": "Sourced estimates of scale, neglectedness and solvability for all 17 cause areas in the Cause Atlas, each with its framework assumptions stated.", "help": [ "Pick a cause area in src/data/causes.json and add a sourced estimate of how much money goes to it, by pull request.", "Open an issue labeled program proposing a cause area the Atlas leaves out.", "Help code organizations by depth for the Depth Census." ], "related": [ "/record/cause-atlas/", "/open-problems/the-depth-census/", "/record/gap-map/", "/tools/values-compass/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "A framework for comparing global problems in terms of expected impact", "url": "https://80000hours.org/articles/problem-framework/", "publisher": "Robert Wiblin, 80,000 Hours", "year": 2016 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nFilter the cause map by text and proposed upstream source, then start a [census observation](#workspace-cause-census). Record a primary source, coverage, unit, reference year and uncertainty. A blank value stays unknown; a reported zero stays zero. The map counts entries in this Record, not global need or funding.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nThe Cause Census maps every cause area Charitology tracks, from global health to arts and culture. For each cause it aims to answer the three questions that 80,000 Hours sets out in its framework for comparing global problems: how big is the problem, how neglected is it and how much would more effort solve? The census adds a fourth question of its own: where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) does the money already going to this cause act?\n\n## How it works\n\nThe census starts from the [Cause Atlas](/record/cause-atlas/), which places 17 cause areas on five dimensions, such as whom a cause protects and how certain its results are. Those positions are editorial judgments, and the data file says so. The census would add sourced estimates on top: how many people or beings a problem affects, how much money already goes to it and what the evidence says about progress per dollar.\n\nEvery estimate would carry its assumptions, and scale needs the most care. A problem’s size depends on what you count: lives, rights, species, future people or the health of a community. So the census would report scale through more than one [moral framework](/method/#frameworks) and show where the ranking changes.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/) asks how faces and headlines might pull attention away from the scale of a need. That mechanism is debated; it should be tested rather than assumed. A public census would put the size of each problem next to the attention it gets, so a giver can see the gap for themselves.\n\nThe depth question treats the [Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/). Within each cause, the census would ask how much money goes to relief and how much to work on sources. That is the [Depth Census](/open-problems/the-depth-census/) carried out one cause at a time. Charitology has not established that mix; the census would provide a baseline.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nNumbers can hide value judgments. Neglectedness can only be measured for resources someone tracks, such as grants, so informal giving and volunteer time are easy to miss. The census would label each number with its source, its year and the judgment behind it.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, every cause area has sourced estimates with stated assumptions and the depth mix is estimated for at least five causes. Funders cite the census when they explain where their money goes." }, { "id": "certified-charitologist", "path": "/programs/certified-charitologist/", "title": "Certified Charitologist", "group": "People and education", "order": 1, "summary": "A nonaccredited self-study completion record today, with a proposed professional credential that would require an independently reviewed exam and portfolio.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A printable nonaccredited course completion record is available from the shared ten-unit course progress. The proposed professional credential, independent exam and two-reviewer portfolio process do not operate.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession" ], "firstMilestone": "Complete the self-study course and capstone to print a completion record. A separately governed professional exam and portfolio pilot still need people and public review.", "help": [ "Draft exam questions for one chapter of the Principles of Charitology in an issue labeled program.", "Volunteer to take the pilot exam by opening an issue labeled program.", "Critique the list of skills a charitologist should be able to show." ], "related": [ "/record/principles/", "/programs/principles-course/", "/open-problems/the-profession-question/", "/contribute/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP)", "url": "https://www.finra.org/investors/professional-designations/cap", "publisher": "FINRA professional designations database" }, { "title": "CFRE International", "url": "https://www.cfre.org/", "publisher": "CFRE International" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What is available now\n\n[Jump to the working completion record](#pc-title).\n\nThe completion workspace below uses the same local progress as the [Principles course](/programs/principles-course/). Finish its ten readings, twenty knowledge checks, practice notes and capstone to unlock a printable course completion record. You can back up or import that progress with JSON.\n\nThe record is explicitly **nonaccredited self-study**. It does not verify identity, independently assess reasoning or confer the proposed Certified Charitologist professional credential. Do not present it as that credential.\n\n## The proposed professional credential\n\nThe charter below describes a future exam and human portfolio review. Neither has been established by publishing this workspace.\n\n## What it is\n\nA craft needs a way to recognize people who can do the work. Certified Charitologist would be that recognition for the craft of aiming generosity. It is meant for donors, nonprofit staff, foundation officers and the advisors who help people give.\n\nCredentials already exist for neighboring work. The Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy is a designation from The American College of Financial Services, and CFRE certifies fundraising professionals. Certified Charitologist would cover a different question: where generosity does the most good, across causes, methods and moral frameworks.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe credential would have two parts. The first is an open exam built on the [Principles of Charitology](/record/principles/): the depth scale, counterfactual thinking, evidence grades, moral frameworks and the conditions of the charity system. The second is a portfolio: a published analysis of one real giving decision, reviewed by two experienced reviewers against public criteria.\n\nCertified charitologists would agree to a short code built on the Charitology Standard: describe mechanisms and never judge people, label every claim honestly and disclose any conflict of interest. The exam would be free, and its study path is the free [Principles of Charitology Course](/programs/principles-course/).\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Missing Profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/) is a hypothesis. Charitology claims that a trained craft would change where money goes, the way medicine changed how illness is treated. A credential is how a craft becomes visible, so donors and employers can find people trained in it.\n\nIt is also how the hypothesis gets tested. [Open Problem 17, the Profession Question](/open-problems/the-profession-question/), asks whether training changes decisions. Certified and uncertified advisors facing the same choices make a natural comparison.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA credential can turn into a gate, and gatekeeping is one of the problems Charitology studies. The certificate would never be required to contribute, publish or call yourself a charitologist. It would only say that someone has shown they know the method.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the exam and portfolio criteria are public and a few hundred people have earned the credential. A published study has compared their decisions with those of advisors without it." }, { "id": "charitology-fellowship", "path": "/programs/charitology-fellowship/", "title": "Charitology Fellowship", "group": "People and education", "order": 2, "summary": "Paid fellowships that would let researchers and practitioners spend a year working full-time on the field’s open problems, with everything they produce published openly.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "Fellowships need funding and host institutions. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession" ], "firstMilestone": "A host institution, a legal home and published selection criteria in place for a pilot cohort of three fellows.", "help": [ "If your university, research group or nonprofit could host fellows, open an issue labeled program.", "Propose a fellowship project tied to one of the Open Problems.", "Suggest how fellows should be chosen so the program reaches people outside the usual institutions." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/", "/open-problems/the-profession-question/", "/programs/question-bounties/", "/programs/certified-charitologist/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nThe Charitology Fellowship would pay people to spend a year working full-time on the questions the field most needs answered. Fellows might be early-career researchers, experienced nonprofit staff, data journalists or people from the communities where much charitable money is spent. Each fellow would take on one piece of work: an open problem, a replication, a set of case studies or a new public dataset.\n\n## How it works\n\nFellows would be chosen through an open call with published criteria, and they would work in small cohorts that share drafts in public. Each fellowship would be hosted by a university, research group or nonprofit that provides supervision and a place to work. Every output would be published openly, and each project would be scoped to end in something others can use, such as a dataset, a method or a reviewed result.\n\nThe stipend would be enough to live on. A fellowship that only people with savings can afford would narrow the field it is trying to grow.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Missing Profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/) is partly a matter of paid time. The hardest questions in giving fall between disciplines, causes and funders, so they are rarely anyone’s job. Volunteers and prizes help. Charitology’s working assumption is that steady progress also needs people who can stay with one question for a long stretch. A fellowship would give the field those people, and its alumni would become the field’s first practitioners, reviewers and teachers.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA small program can fund only a few people, and selection can favor applicants who already have credentials and connections. The open call would be advertised beyond the usual institutions, and the criteria would weigh lived experience of the problems alongside academic training. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years of the first cohort, fellows have published work on at least five open problems, and most alumni still work on how generosity is aimed." }, { "id": "charitology-summit", "path": "/programs/charitology-summit/", "title": "Charitology Summit", "group": "Reach", "order": 1, "summary": "A planned yearly working gathering of researchers, funders, nonprofits and the people they serve, across every cause and framework, built around shared problems rather than speeches.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "A summit needs a host, a venue, funding and a legal home. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "fragmentation", "missing-profession" ], "firstMilestone": "A free online pilot with sessions on three Open Problems, a red-team session and a failure session, all recorded and published.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program proposing a working session built around one open problem.", "If your institution could host an online pilot or an in-person summit, open an issue labeled program.", "Suggest ways to bring in people from the communities charity serves, not only funders and experts." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/", "/open-problems/the-fragmentation-question/", "/record/progress-report/", "/programs/red-team/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nExperts work across many causes and disciplines; this proposal would give them a shared place to examine the system that connects their work. The Charitology Summit would gather people once a year around that shared system: researchers, funders, nonprofit staff and the people charity serves, from every cause and every moral framework.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe summit would be organized around work, not speeches. Each session would take one open problem, one dataset or one disagreement and end with something written down: a plan, a partial answer or a list of what would settle the question. Some sessions would return every year: progress on the [Open Problems](/open-problems/), a red-team session on Charitology’s own claims and a session where organizations present their failures.\n\nAttendance would be free or low-cost, with travel support for people from the communities and countries where much charitable money is spent. Every session would be streamed and published. An online pilot would come first.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Fragmentation Problem](/diagnosis/fragmentation/) raises the question of when shared information and incentives help organizations coordinate. A summit built around shared problems would give them one, and a place to start sharing data and dividing work.\n\nIt would also treat the [Missing Profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/). A field needs somewhere its people can meet, argue and recognize each other’s work. A yearly summit could be where a new field starts to know itself.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nConferences can become prestige events, which would feed the [Prestige Economy](/diagnosis/prestige-economy/) instead of treating it. The summit would sell no speaking slots or sponsor tiers, and it would publish its costs. Travel has costs of its own, so taking part online would be a full option, not an afterthought. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the summit has produced published progress on several open problems, and at least one coordination effort among organizations working on the same problem has started there." }, { "id": "charity-incubator", "path": "/programs/charity-incubator/", "title": "Charity Incubator", "group": "Funding", "order": 2, "summary": "A planned incubator that would launch new organizations to fill gaps the research finds, but only after checking that no existing organization could fill them instead.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "Incubation needs funding, a legal home and experienced mentors. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "symptom-trap", "fragmentation" ], "firstMilestone": "A published gap report naming three gaps the research has found, each checked for whether an existing organization could fill it.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program pointing to a gap that you think no organization is filling.", "Tell us which existing organization already fills a gap the research names.", "If you run or advise an incubator and could partner, open an issue labeled program." ], "related": [ "/record/gap-map/", "/open-problems/the-fragmentation-question/", "/programs/cause-census/", "/programs/methods-lab/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ambitious Impact", "url": "https://www.ambitiousimpact.com/", "publisher": "Ambitious Impact", "note": "The launch count is the organization’s own figure, from its home page." } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nResearch sometimes finds a gap: a problem with a promising approach and nobody working on it. The Charity Incubator would fill such gaps, preferably by helping an existing organization take the work on, and only as a last resort by launching a new one.\n\n## How it works\n\nEvery candidate gap would go through three checks. Is it real? It has to appear on the [Gap Map](/record/gap-map/) with its evidence. Is anyone already working on it? The program would search public registries and ask the field. Could an existing organization fill it with some help? Only when those checks point the same way would the incubator recruit founders, help them design the work with the people it would serve and support the first years.\n\nResearch-led incubation has been done before. Ambitious Impact runs an incubation program that gives founders researched charity ideas, training and help finding seed funding, and it reports having launched more than 60 charities. Charitology would bring its own lenses to the search: gaps at every level of the [depth scale](/method/#depth) and gaps that only some moral frameworks can see.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nIf the [Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/) is real, work on sources stays thin partly because few organizations are built to do it. When the research finds a gap upstream, someone has to build the team that works on it.\n\nThe incubator also has to respect the [Fragmentation Problem](/diagnosis/fragmentation/). Every new organization adds a board, a budget and a fundraising effort to a crowded field. That is why launching comes last, and why helping an existing organization grow, merge or take on a program counts as success.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nAn organization can outlive the evidence that justified it. The incubator would set an evaluation point for every organization it helps start, with a plan to merge, hand off or close if the work doesn’t hold up. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years of starting, most of the gaps the incubator takes on are filled by organizations that already existed, and every new organization it launches has a published evaluation. At least one source-level gap has a team working on it." }, { "id": "corporate-program", "path": "/programs/corporate-program/", "title": "Corporate Program", "group": "Reach", "order": 4, "summary": "Redesigns workplace giving and gift matching so they fund flexibly, report what gifts achieved and recognize results rather than size.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A workplace matching calculator compares capped equal-gift scenarios, administration costs, budget shortfalls and participation sensitivity, alongside an editable policy and review checklist. It does not process gifts, payroll or establish company pilots.", "conditions": [ "restriction-reflex", "prestige-economy" ], "firstMilestone": "Export a concrete policy draft with explicit matching assumptions and an oversubscription rule for human review. A company pilot and published results remain future work.", "help": [ "If you run workplace giving or matching at a company, open an issue labeled program to talk about a pilot.", "Share the rules of a matching program you know, with any public documents, so designs can be compared.", "Critique the draft principles on this page." ], "related": [ "/tools/values-compass/", "/tools/giving-dashboard/", "/open-problems/the-optimal-restriction/", "/open-problems/the-status-flip/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Giving USA: $617.2B Was Given To Nonprofits During 2025", "url": "https://thenonprofittimes.com/npt_articles/giving-usa-617-2-b-was-given-to-nonprofits-during-2025/", "publisher": "The NonProfit Times, reporting Giving USA 2026", "year": 2026 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the workplace policy workspace\n\n[Jump to the working workspace](#pw-title).\n\nDraft eligibility, flexible-funding, privacy and feedback rules below. Compare matching scenarios using eligible employees, participation, average gift, match ratio, employer cap, administration cost and total budget. Participants are rounded down to whole people, and each modeled participant makes the same average gift. The calculator applies the employer cap per person before adding matches.\n\nEach scenario shows employee gifts, employer cost, budget headroom or shortfall and a participation sensitivity of ten percentage points in each direction. An oversubscribed scenario stays oversubscribed until you choose and disclose a policy response; the tool does not silently reduce promised matches. These are planning assumptions, not observed participation or outcomes.\n\nExport a policy kit and review tasks as Markdown, the inputs and calculations as CSV or an editable JSON backup. No money moves and no recipient’s eligibility is determined here. The company-pilot program below remains proposed.\n\n## What it is\n\nCompanies shape giving in two ways: through their own grants and through programs that help employees give, such as payroll giving and gift matching. Corporations accounted for about 7 percent of the estimated $617.2 billion given to U.S. nonprofits in 2025, according to Giving USA. The Corporate Program would redesign corporate and workplace giving around what gifts achieve.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe program would start from a short set of draft principles:\n\n- **Match without strings.** Match gifts for general support at least as readily as gifts tied to projects, and offer multi-year matches.\n- **Report results, not totals.** Show employees what their pooled giving achieved, not only how much was given.\n- **Show the lenses.** Offer the [Values Compass](/tools/values-compass/) and depth information at the moment people give, so they can see their choices across frameworks.\n- **Celebrate the best-aimed gift.** Recognize gifts for what they did, not for how big or visible they were.\n- **Count time well.** Use [Time Charitology](/programs/time-charitology/) to design volunteer programs around what organizations actually need.\n\nA pilot company would apply the principles for a year and publish what changed, including what didn’t work.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nA company’s grant terms and matching rules apply to every gift that passes through them. If those rules favor project grants over general support, they build the [Restriction Reflex](/diagnosis/restriction-reflex/) into all of those gifts at once. Rewritten, the same rules can make flexible funding the default instead.\n\nCompanies also decide what to celebrate. Recognizing gifts for what they achieved, rather than how large or public they were, points the [Prestige Economy](/diagnosis/prestige-economy/) at results.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nWorkplace giving belongs to employees, and a redesign shouldn’t push anyone toward particular causes. The principles widen what employees see. They don’t narrow what they may choose. Business goals such as marketing can also pull a program toward visible gifts, so pilots would publish their results either way.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, at least ten companies have adopted the principles and published their results, and the share of matched gifts that go to general support has grown at those companies." }, { "id": "donor-advisory", "path": "/programs/donor-advisory/", "title": "Donor Advisory", "group": "People and education", "order": 5, "summary": "Planned independent help for donors, families and foundations to work out what they value, when their money should move and how to weigh giving near and far.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "Advising needs trained advisors, a legal home and partners licensed for tax, legal and investment questions. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "parked-money", "single-lens", "proximity-pull" ], "firstMilestone": "A published advising protocol and conflict-of-interest policy, tried with ten volunteer donors whose anonymized feedback is published.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program with questions you think an advisor should ask.", "If you advise donors professionally and would follow the protocol pro bono, open an issue labeled program.", "Try the Values Compass and the Portfolio Builder, then report where they fell short of the help you needed." ], "related": [ "/tools/values-compass/", "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "/tools/legacy-planner/", "/open-problems/the-payout-question/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nDonor Advisory would sit down with a donor, a family or a foundation and work through a giving plan using the Charitology method. The advisor’s job would be to help donors see their own choices clearly: which moral frameworks they hold, where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) they want to act, how near or far they want to give and when the money should move. The donor decides.\n\n## How it works\n\nEvery engagement would follow a published protocol. It would start with values, using the [Values Compass](/tools/values-compass/), and move to a draft allocation in the [Portfolio Builder](/tools/portfolio-builder/). It would then cover timing, including whether money held in a foundation or a donor-advised fund should move faster, and distance, with honest comparisons of what the same money could do at home and abroad.\n\nAdvisors would take no commissions and disclose every conflict of interest. Tax, legal and investment questions belong to licensed professionals, so the program would work alongside them rather than replace them. And until Charitology’s method passes public red-team review, advisors would not hand out rankings of named charities. They would point donors to public research instead.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThree conditions meet in a single giving plan. [Parked Money](/diagnosis/parked-money/) builds up because the system has no view on when money should move, so the default is whatever is easiest. An advisor would turn timing into a deliberate choice. The [Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/) can narrow a plan to one framework without the donor noticing, and the advisor would show the others. The [Proximity Pull](/diagnosis/proximity-pull/) works partly through missing information, and the advisor would supply the comparison, so the donor can choose with eyes open whether to give near or far.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nAdvice can steer people toward the advisor’s own views. The protocol would put the donor’s values first, record the reasons for each choice and ask donors afterward whether they felt steered. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the protocol is public and in use, and donors who used it say their plans reflect their own values. A study has compared their giving with that of similar donors who didn’t use it." }, { "id": "evidence-reviews", "path": "/programs/evidence-reviews/", "title": "Evidence Reviews", "group": "Research", "order": 5, "summary": "Plan a review, inspect linked intervention sources and save study extractions, bias appraisals and an evidence synthesis.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live protocol and study-extraction software links the draft Intervention Database. The workspace does not run literature searches or publish independently reviewed systematic reviews.", "conditions": [ "measurement-gap" ], "firstMilestone": "Reviews of 25 widely funded interventions, each graded and checked against its sources by a second contributor.", "help": [ "Write a review of an intervention you know well, following the Intervention Database format, and open a pull request.", "Check the sources of an existing review and note in the pull request what you verified.", "Open an issue labeled program naming an intervention that needs a review." ], "related": [ "/record/interventions/", "/record/evidence-library/", "/programs/replication-program/", "/method/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "About us", "url": "https://www.cochrane.org/about-us", "publisher": "Cochrane" }, { "title": "The Campbell Collaboration", "url": "https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/", "publisher": "The Campbell Collaboration" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nChoose an intervention and inspect its linked sources, then use the [review desk](#workspace-evidence-reviews) to define a question, search and selection rules. Save an extraction for each study, record bias and uncertainty, and write a synthesis that preserves disagreement. A completed form is a research note, not an independent evidence review.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nA systematic review gathers the good studies on a question, judges how strong each one is and reports what they show together. Evidence Reviews applies that discipline to the interventions charity pays for, and publishes each review in the [Intervention Database](/record/interventions/).\n\n## How it works\n\nEvery review follows one format. It says what the intervention does and how it is supposed to work. It grades the evidence as strong, moderate, mixed, weak or unknown. And it records where the work sits on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), how soon its effects arrive, how long they last and who designed it: the community, the community with outside experts, or outsiders alone. Where cost data exists, the review gives a cost range with its date and source.\n\nThe program builds on reviews that already exist instead of redoing them. Cochrane, a global network of health researchers, professionals, patients and carers, publishes systematic reviews in health. The Campbell Collaboration produces evidence syntheses for economic and social policy. Where one of their reviews covers an intervention, Evidence Reviews summarizes it in plain language and links to it. Where none exists, contributors write a lighter review and say so.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) concerns the difference between counting activity and estimating its effects. A small charity may benefit from evaluation partners and shared research. If a good review shows that an intervention works in settings like its own, the charity can borrow that knowledge instead of building it from scratch. Shared reviews turn measurement from a cost every organization pays separately into a common good the whole field can use.\n\nReviews also make the gaps visible. An intervention graded unknown is a finding, and a target for the [Replication Program](/programs/replication-program/) or for new research.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nEvidence from one place doesn’t always carry over to another. Each review should say where its studies were done and who took part, so readers can judge how far the results travel. Reviews also go stale as new studies appear, so each one should say when it was last checked.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the most widely funded interventions each have a current, graded review, and donors and charities cite those reviews when they decide what to fund." }, { "id": "failure-lab", "path": "/programs/failure-lab/", "title": "Failure Lab", "group": "Research", "order": 8, "summary": "Build a source-linked postmortem, test possible failure mechanisms and track a corrective action and its follow-up.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live case browsing and postmortem software are available. Archive entries remain drafts; cross-case findings and independent field investigations still need researchers and evidence.", "conditions": [ "silence-about-failure" ], "firstMilestone": "Fifty documented cases in the Failure Archive, each with public sources, and a first published analysis of the harm mechanisms they share.", "help": [ "Add a documented failure to the Failure Archive by pull request, with public sources and without blaming anyone.", "Publish a failure from your own organization and link it in an issue labeled program.", "Help sort archived cases by harm mechanism for Open Problem 20." ], "related": [ "/record/failure-archive/", "/open-problems/when-charity-harms/", "/open-problems/the-failure-commons/", "/programs/the-charitology-prize/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "‘Scared Straight’ and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11973542/", "publisher": "Anthony Petrosino, Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino, Meghan E. Hollis-Peel and Julia G. Lavenberg, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews", "year": 2013 }, { "title": "Failure Report 2010: Learning From Our Mistakes", "url": "https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/failure-report-2010-learning-from-our-mistakes/", "publisher": "Engineers Without Borders Canada, via ALNAP", "year": 2011 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nChoose a documented case as a starting point or open a blank [postmortem](#workspace-failure-lab). Separate intentions, observations and explanations. Record the proposed mechanism, its evidence label, a corrective action and how you will check it. Study the system and published actions, without judging people.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nEvery field learns from what went wrong, if it gets to see it. The Failure Lab studies programs that didn’t work and programs that did harm, and it publishes what they teach in the [Failure Archive](/record/failure-archive/).\n\n## How it works\n\nEach case in the archive should be documented from public sources: what was tried, what happened, how anyone found out and what changed afterward. The lab would then look across cases for mechanisms that repeat, such as aid that undercuts local markets, programs that keep running after the evidence turns against them and ideas that worked in one place and failed in another. Mapping those mechanisms is [Open Problem 20, When Charity Harms](/open-problems/when-charity-harms/).\n\nSome lessons are stark. Programs that take young people on organized prison visits to deter them from crime, known as “Scared Straight,” were tested in nine randomized trials in the United States between 1967 and 1992. A Cochrane review of those trials concluded that the programs increase offending compared with doing nothing, and noted that such programs remained in use.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/) costs the field its most valuable data. When a failure goes unpublished, the next group to try the same idea starts from zero. The lab treats that condition by turning failure into a shared resource instead of a private embarrassment, and by showing that a well-documented failure is a contribution. Some organizations have already shown the way: Engineers Without Borders Canada has published yearly reports of its own failures.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nNaming failures can punish the very honesty the lab wants to reward. So the archive draws on public sources or on cases organizations choose to share, and it describes mechanisms rather than blaming people. An organization that publishes its own failure is credited as a contributor. No case is published with personal details about the people a program served.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the archive holds enough cases to show which harm mechanisms recur and under what conditions, and organizations consult it when they design new programs." }, { "id": "field-verification", "path": "/programs/field-verification/", "title": "Field Verification", "group": "Research", "order": 7, "summary": "Planned independent, on-the-ground checks that programs do what they report, including asking the people served what changed, with findings published in the open.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "Field work needs funding, local research partners and ethics review. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "missing-feedback-loop", "measurement-gap", "missing-voice" ], "firstMilestone": "A published verification protocol, reviewed by field researchers and community organizations, and one pilot check run with a local research partner.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program describing what a fair check of one kind of program, such as water points or school meals, should look at.", "If you lead a research group or community organization that could partner on a pilot, open an issue labeled program.", "Share a monitoring or feedback method that worked for your organization." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/closing-the-feedback-loop/", "/open-problems/the-agency-premium/", "/tools/due-diligence-checklist/", "/programs/evidence-reviews/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Feedback Labs", "url": "https://feedbacklabs.org/", "publisher": "Feedback Labs" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nMost of what donors know about a program comes from the organization that runs it. Field Verification would add an independent check. Local researchers would visit a sample of sites and ask two questions: did the work happen as reported, and what do the people it was meant to serve say changed?\n\n## How it works\n\nEach check would follow a published protocol written for that kind of program. For a water project, that might mean visiting a random sample of water points to see whether they work. For a school program, it might mean comparing attendance records with what teachers and families report. People would be interviewed with their consent, in their own language and by researchers from their region. Only summary findings would be published, and nobody’s personal details would appear in a report.\n\nOrganizations would see the findings before publication, and their response would be printed alongside. Checks would be done with an organization, not to it, and any organization could ask for one.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nField Verification would work on three conditions at once. It would close part of the [Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/) by carrying what happened on the ground back to the people who paid for it. It would narrow the [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) with a shared service that small organizations couldn’t afford to build alone. And it would treat the [Missing Voice](/diagnosis/missing-voice/) by making the people served a primary source rather than an afterthought.\n\nOthers have built part of this. Feedback Labs, for example, helps nonprofits and funders listen to the people they serve and act on what they hear. Field Verification would add an independent, published check that any donor can read.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nVisits take people’s time, and an outside researcher can change what people are willing to say. Checks can also become a burden that falls hardest on small organizations. The protocol would limit visit length, pay local researchers fairly and go through ethics review before any pilot. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, independent checks are a normal part of how large programs report and their findings are public. At least some funding decisions have changed because of them." }, { "id": "forecasting-tournaments", "path": "/programs/forecasting-tournaments/", "title": "Forecasting Tournaments", "group": "Research", "order": 10, "summary": "People predict which interventions and policies will work before the results are in, and every forecast is scored with a Brier score when its question resolves.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Questions and forecasts are added by pull request and shown on the Forecasting Platform. Each forecast is scored when its question resolves.", "conditions": [ "missing-feedback-loop", "short-horizon" ], "firstMilestone": "The first ten questions resolved and scored, with the scores published and a short report on what the forecasts got right and wrong.", "help": [ "Add your forecast to an open question with a pull request to src/content/forecasts/, giving a probability and a short rationale.", "Open an issue labeled program proposing a question that will resolve clearly by a stated date.", "When a question closes, help resolve it by finding the source that settles it." ], "related": [ "/tools/forecasting-platform/", "/open-problems/the-question-of-questions/", "/open-problems/measuring-the-source/", "/programs/replication-program/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Verification of forecasts expressed in terms of probability", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20171023012737/https://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/078/mwr-078-01-0001.pdf", "publisher": "Glenn W. Brier, Monthly Weather Review 78(1)", "year": 1950, "note": "Scan of the original article, archived from the NOAA Central Library." }, { "title": "A new measure of forecast skill using the Brier score", "url": "https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/33800/noaa_33800_DS1.pdf", "publisher": "Richard P. McNulty, National Weather Service Central Region Technical Attachment 88-26", "year": 1988, "note": "States the common form of the score used by the National Weather Service." }, { "title": "Social Science Prediction Platform", "url": "https://socialscienceprediction.org/", "publisher": "Social Science Prediction Platform", "note": "Stefano DellaVigna and Eva Vivalt are listed as principal investigators on the platform’s About page." } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nBefore a study reports or a policy takes effect, people already expect something. Forecasting Tournaments writes those expectations down and checks them. Each question asks for the probability that something specific will happen by a stated date, such as a trial finding a measurable effect or a program reaching its target. When the date comes, every forecast is scored.\n\n## How it works\n\nQuestions and forecasts live in the repository and appear on the [Forecasting Platform](/tools/forecasting-platform/). Anyone can add a forecast by pull request: a probability between 0 and 1, a date and, ideally, a short rationale. Each question states in advance exactly what will count as yes.\n\nForecasts are scored with the Brier score, which Glenn Brier of the U.S. Weather Bureau proposed in 1950 for weather forecasts given as probabilities. In its common form, the score is the squared gap between the probability a forecaster gave and what happened, counted as 1 if it happened and 0 if it didn’t, averaged over questions. Lower is better, and 0 is perfect. Brier was looking for a scheme that “cannot influence the forecaster in any undesirable way.”\n\nResearchers already do a version of this. The Social Science Prediction Platform, led by Stefano DellaVigna and Eva Vivalt, collects expert forecasts of the effects of social programs before they are tested. Charitology applies the same idea to giving.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/) means a giver rarely learns whether their judgment was right. A scored forecast is a small, fast loop: you say what you expect, the world answers and the score tells you how well you judged. Over many questions, the scores show whose judgment holds up.\n\nForecasting also pushes against the [Short Horizon](/diagnosis/short-horizon/). A question can run for ten years, which puts slow work on the record so the field can later learn from the gap between what it expected and what happened.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nQuestions that resolve quickly and cleanly are the easiest to write, which can pull the tournament toward short-term, measurable outcomes. The program should keep long-range questions in the mix on purpose. With few forecasters, scores are noisy, so any score should be read alongside the number of questions behind it.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin three years, hundreds of forecasts have been scored and forecasters’ track records are public. Funders look at the forecasts before backing new programs." }, { "id": "history-of-charity", "path": "/programs/history-of-charity/", "title": "History of Charity", "group": "Research", "order": 9, "summary": "Browse a sourced historical timeline and compare cases through their mechanisms, contexts, missing records and conditional lessons.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live filters, a source-linked timeline and a comparison notebook cover the current 13 draft cases. Broader historical coverage and independent source review remain open.", "conditions": [ "short-horizon", "silence-about-failure" ], "firstMilestone": "Twenty sourced case studies spanning at least four centuries and five world regions, with successes, failures and mixed results all represented.", "help": [ "Write a sourced case study of a historical success, failure or mixed result and open a pull request.", "Open an issue labeled program proposing a case the collection is missing, especially from outside Europe and North America.", "Check an existing case’s sources and lessons." ], "related": [ "/record/case-studies/", "/record/traditions/", "/open-problems/measuring-the-source/", "/programs/failure-lab/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Smallpox: A Great and Terrible Scourge, “Success”", "url": "https://nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_success.html", "publisher": "U.S. National Library of Medicine" }, { "title": "Charity Organization Societies: 1877-1893", "url": "https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/organizations/charity-organization-societies-1877-1893/", "publisher": "John E. Hansan, Social Welfare History Project, VCU Libraries", "year": 2013 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nFilter the timeline by period or place, reported outcome and depth. Open the lessons and source links, then compare two different cases in the [notebook](#workspace-history-of-charity). A timeline does not establish causation. Record differences and missing perspectives before carrying a lesson into a new setting.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nGiving has a long record, and much of it has never been read as evidence. The History of Charity program studies that record: which efforts solved a problem for good, which ones failed and why, and what each one teaches today. Each study becomes an entry in the [Historical Case Studies](/record/case-studies/).\n\n## How it works\n\nEvery case follows one format: what happened, where and when, where it acted on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), and the lessons that carry over. Cases are labeled as successes, failures or mixed results, and every claim is sourced. The first case is the eradication of smallpox, which the World Health Organization judged complete in 1980.\n\nHistory also holds earlier attempts at a science of giving, and Charitology studies them as closely as any other case. Starting with the London Charity Organization Society, founded in 1869, reformers tried to put charity on a scientific footing. They investigated and registered applicants, kept central records and brought local charities together to coordinate their work. Their methods later fed into the casework of modern social work. They also screened applicants by asking whether each one was worthy or unworthy. Both halves of that legacy are lessons. The first shows that careful method can grow into a profession. The second is a warning Charitology takes seriously: study the system, and never grade the people in it.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nHistory is the only place where the long run has already happened. The [Short Horizon](/diagnosis/short-horizon/) means most giving is judged within a year or two. A case study can show what a twenty-year effort achieved, or what a quick success cost later.\n\nHistory also works against the [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/). Failures that were never published at the time can still be studied from archives, so their lessons are learned once instead of again and again.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nThe surviving records may come mostly from funders and institutions rather than the people they served, and famous successes may be better documented than quiet failures. The program seeks sources from the communities involved, and each case should say how complete its record is.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the case studies cover successes, failures and mixed results from many regions and centuries, and Charitology’s methods cite the historical evidence behind them." }, { "id": "methods-lab", "path": "/programs/methods-lab/", "title": "Methods Lab", "group": "Research", "order": 3, "summary": "Design alternatives across seven ways of giving and compare their user-entered scenarios within a common outcome, scope, currency and horizon.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live scenario and experiment-planning software is available. Its ranges are user assumptions, not empirical estimates; staffed comparative research and published findings remain milestones.", "conditions": [ "single-lens", "symptom-trap" ], "firstMilestone": "A published comparison of all seven methods on one shared problem, with the evidence for each method graded and its place on the depth scale stated.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program proposing a problem the lab could use for its first comparison.", "Summarize the strongest evidence you know for one method, with sources, in an issue labeled program.", "Describe a way of giving that the list of seven leaves out." ], "related": [ "/record/interventions/", "/programs/time-charitology/", "/programs/question-bounties/", "/open-problems/the-counterfactual-problem/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cash transfers: what does the evidence say? A rigorous review of impacts and the role of design and implementation features", "url": "https://odi.org/en/publications/cash-transfers-what-does-the-evidence-say-a-rigorous-review-of-impacts-and-the-role-of-design-and-implementation-features/", "publisher": "ODI", "year": 2016 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nUse the [experiment workspace](#workspace-methods-lab) to plan several approaches to one problem. Matching population, outcome unit, currency and time horizon groups saved scenarios for comparison. Enter evidence and uncertainty before interpreting cost per expected outcome. Blank inputs stay unknown. These scenario bounds are not confidence intervals, effectiveness scores or forecasts validated against results.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nPeople give in many ways. They send cash directly, fund advocacy for a change in policy, pay for research, join mutual aid with their neighbors, volunteer, invest for impact and put up prizes. Choosing between two cash programs is one kind of question. Choosing between cash, advocacy and a prize for the same problem is another. The Methods Lab would study the second kind.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe lab would take one problem at a time and ask how each method would go after it. For each method it would record the evidence, what it costs to find out whether the method worked, how long results take, who decides how the money is used and where the work acts on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), from relief to source.\n\nThe evidence is uneven, and the lab would say so. Some methods have been studied in depth: a 2016 review by ODI drew together 15 years of studies of cash transfers in 30 low- and middle-income countries. For others, the lab would start by gathering what evidence exists. Charitology knows of no study that puts all seven side by side on the same problem.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nEach method tends to fit some moral frameworks better than others. Cash lets the people who receive it choose. Advocacy aims at the rules. Mutual aid starts from relationships. A giver who only ever uses one method sees giving through one lens, which is the [Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/) applied to tools instead of causes.\n\nMethods also differ in how easy their results are to see. Cash delivered and services provided are easy to count. Advocacy and research often act further upstream, and their results can take years to show. If evidence that is easy to collect becomes the only test, money drifts toward the methods that are easiest to measure, which is one way the [Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/) could work. The lab would keep “hard to measure” and “doesn’t work” apart.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nComparing methods means comparing different kinds of evidence, and there is no neutral scale for that. The lab would publish its reasoning and its weights so others can rerun the comparison with their own.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the lab has compared all seven methods on at least three problems, and a giver choosing how to give can see each method’s evidence, depth and trade-offs in one place." }, { "id": "local-charitology", "path": "/programs/local-charitology/", "title": "Local Charitology", "group": "Reach", "order": 2, "summary": "Applies the Charitology method to one city’s giving, mapping where local money goes by cause and depth and where organizations overlap or leave gaps.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A local research workspace records a geographic scope, sourced needs and activities, tentative depth descriptions and listening questions, then exports a methods-first brief. It is not a completed city census or a rating service.", "conditions": [ "proximity-pull", "fragmentation" ], "firstMilestone": "Create and check one public-data research brief with stated boundaries, source dates and blind spots. A published pilot-city map and community review still need local researchers.", "help": [ "Volunteer to map your city by opening an issue labeled program.", "Help build a mapping method from public filings that other cities can reuse.", "Introduce a community foundation or local funders’ network that could use a map." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/proximity-and-obligation/", "/open-problems/the-fragmentation-question/", "/record/disagreements/", "/tools/charity-lookup/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nonprofit Explorer", "url": "https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/", "publisher": "ProPublica" }, { "title": "Charity Impact Media", "url": "https://theguysaccount.github.io/charity-impact-media/", "publisher": "Charity Impact Media" }, { "title": "WHOFUNDS open grant graph", "url": "https://theguysaccount.github.io/whofunds-open-grant-graph/", "publisher": "WHOFUNDS" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the local research workspace\n\n[Jump to the working workspace](#pw-title).\n\nSet your boundary, population, question and search method below. Record needs with dates, denominators and public sources. Describe activities by mechanism and tentative depth, then track unanswered questions and whose input is missing. The summary counts only the activities you entered; it cannot describe the whole city.\n\nExport a Markdown brief with methods, sources, limitations and a listening guide, or CSV for further mapping. JSON backs up the editable notebook. Nothing is submitted or published. Store only aggregate public information. A missing record is not evidence that no work exists. The wider city-mapping program below remains proposed.\n\n## What it is\n\nMuch giving stays close to home. Local Charitology would take local giving as it is and ask how to aim it well. It would apply the method to one city at a time: which problems the city has, which organizations work on them, where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) they act and where they overlap or leave gaps.\n\n## How it works\n\nA city map would start from public data. ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer makes the tax filings of U.S. tax-exempt organizations searchable. Charity Impact Media publishes spending breakdowns from selected large U.S. public charities’ Form 990 filings. WHOFUNDS shows which private foundations fund which nonprofits, and publishes its own miss rate. Volunteers would code each organization by cause and depth, then check the map with the people who run those organizations and the people they serve.\n\nThe finished map would show where money and effort cluster, where several groups do the same thing and where its data do not identify work on a problem’s sources. Absence from the map would not prove that no work exists. It would also give local givers an honest comparison of what their money can do at home and what the same money could do elsewhere.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Proximity Pull](/diagnosis/proximity-pull/) is partly a moral question and partly an information gap. Local Charitology wouldn’t tell anyone to stop giving locally. It would close the information gap, both within the city and between the city and the rest of the world, so givers can choose with their eyes open.\n\nThe [Fragmentation Problem](/diagnosis/fragmentation/) is easiest to see at city scale, where dozens of organizations may work on the same problem without knowing exactly what the others do. A shared map would be a first coordination layer.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nPublic data covers larger organizations best. Charity Impact Media, for example, includes only charities with $10 million or more in revenue, so smaller local groups have to be found another way, starting with the people who know the city. A map can also feel like a verdict, so it would describe what organizations do and never rate them.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, maps of at least five cities are public and local funders use them to coordinate. The method is documented well enough for any city to run its own." }, { "id": "nonprofit-advisory", "path": "/programs/nonprofit-advisory/", "title": "Nonprofit Advisory", "group": "People and education", "order": 6, "summary": "Planned practical help for nonprofits to measure what their work changes and explain what it really costs, so they can be judged by results rather than overhead.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "Advising needs trained advisors, evaluation partners and independent funding. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "measurement-gap", "overhead-myth" ], "firstMilestone": "A free, self-guided version of the advisory process, published alongside the Impact Measurement Toolkit and tried with five small nonprofits.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program describing a measurement method that worked for a small organization.", "If you evaluate programs professionally and could advise pro bono, open an issue labeled program.", "Try the Impact Measurement Toolkit with your organization and report what was missing." ], "related": [ "/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/", "/tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/", "/open-problems/the-overhead-replacement/", "/record/myths/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nNonprofit Advisory would help charities, especially small ones, answer the questions donors should be asking: what changed because of this work, and what did it really cost? It would be the other side of [Donor Advisory](/programs/donor-advisory/). One would help givers ask better questions. This one would help organizations answer them.\n\n## How it works\n\nAn advisor would work with an organization’s staff for a few months. Together they would name the outcomes that matter, choose the simplest credible way to check them and borrow from [Evidence Reviews](/programs/evidence-reviews/) wherever existing research already covers the work. They would also build an honest picture of costs, including the staff, systems and evaluation that results depend on, using the [Impact Measurement Toolkit](/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/) and the [Cost-Effectiveness Model Kit](/tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/).\n\nEverything the advisor helps produce would belong to the organization, and the method would be published so others can follow it without an advisor. Advisors would be funded independently of the organizations they help and of those organizations’ funders, so the advice serves the mission rather than a sale.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) concerns the resources and methods needed to estimate effects. A small team may need evaluation partners rather than running a study alone. A shared advisory service, backed by a published method, would bring that skill within reach.\n\nThe [Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/) survives because the overhead ratio is easy to find and results aren’t. An organization that can show what it achieved per dollar, and explain what its systems cost, gives donors a better number to look at and a reason to stop starving the systems that make results possible.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nMeasurement takes staff time away from the work itself. Advisors would match the method to the size of the decision it informs, and sometimes the honest advice is that a small program should borrow evidence rather than run its own study. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the self-guided version is widely used, and organizations that used it publish outcomes and full costs that donors can compare." }, { "id": "principles-course", "path": "/programs/principles-course/", "title": "Principles of Charitology Course", "group": "People and education", "order": 4, "summary": "A free course built on the open textbook Principles of Charitology, with one unit per chapter and exercises that use real tools and data.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Ten-unit browser course with full textbook readings, twenty explained knowledge checks, saved practice notes and capstone, JSON backup and a printable nonaccredited completion record. No independent assessment is claimed.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession" ], "firstMilestone": "Complete all ten units and a capstone, then export a self-study completion record. A study of whether training changes decisions remains future work.", "help": [ "Write an exercise or problem set for a published chapter and share it in an issue labeled program.", "Work through a unit and open an issue labeled program describing what confused you.", "Teach a unit in your own class and report how it went." ], "related": [ "/record/principles/", "/record/lexicon/", "/programs/certified-charitologist/", "/programs/university-chapters/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the working course\n\n[Jump to the working course](#pc-title).\n\nThe course below contains all ten textbook readings, two knowledge questions per unit with explanations, a practice exercise and a worked example. Confirm the reading, answer both questions correctly and save at least 30 characters of practice notes to complete each unit. Finish with a capstone of at least 200 characters. Those length checks record participation; they cannot assess reasoning.\n\nProgress stays in this browser. Export JSON to back it up or move it to another device. The [completion record](/programs/certified-charitologist/) reads the same saved progress. It is nonaccredited and self-study; there is no identity check, proctored exam or human portfolio review. The [complete reading edition](/record/principles/read/) is also available.\n\n## What it is\n\nThe Principles of Charitology Course is a free introduction to the field for anyone who gives, works at a nonprofit or advises people who do. It is built on [Principles of Charitology](/record/principles/), the open textbook written one chapter at a time, and it needs no account and no fee.\n\n## How it works\n\nEach chapter of the textbook is the core of a unit with three parts:\n\n- **A reading**, which is the chapter itself, with key terms linked to the [Lexicon](/record/lexicon/).\n- **An exercise** that puts the idea to work with a real tool, such as placing a gift on the [depth scale](/method/#depth), comparing frameworks in the [Values Compass](/tools/values-compass/) or estimating what would have happened without a gift.\n- **A problem set** with worked answers, so learners can check themselves.\n\nThe course ends with a self-study capstone: write up one giving decision, real or hypothetical, using the [Giver’s Checklist](/method/#checklist), and publish it if you choose. Teachers are welcome to use any unit in their own classes.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Missing Profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/) can’t be fixed by a few experts. A craft spreads when anyone can learn it. A free course cuts the cost of learning charitology down to the time it takes, which matters most for people outside wealthy institutions and countries.\n\nThe course also serves the rest of the field. It is the proposed study path for the [Certified Charitologist](/programs/certified-charitologist/) credential, and it is a ready-made curriculum for [Open Problem 17, the Profession Question](/open-problems/the-profession-question/), which asks whether training changes where money goes.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA course can teach a method without showing that the method works. That is why each unit is meant to point learners to the open problems it touches, and why Charitology labels its own founding claims as hypotheses.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin three years, every published chapter has a full unit and at least ten teachers use the course in their own classes. A randomized study of a short version has tested whether it changes how people give." }, { "id": "question-bounties", "path": "/programs/question-bounties/", "title": "Question Bounties", "group": "Funding", "order": 3, "summary": "Cash prizes for answering specific Open Problems of Charitology, paid when a result meets the test each problem states. No prizes are funded yet.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "Prize money needs a legal home, either a legal entity or a fiscal sponsor, and independent judges. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession", "measurement-gap" ], "firstMilestone": "Published prize rules and an independent judging panel, with a legal home in place to hold prize money, before any prize is announced.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program proposing prize rules, such as how results are judged, how partial results are paid and how disputes are settled.", "Make the case for which open problem should carry the first prize. That choice is itself Open Problem 23.", "If your institution could hold prize money or judge results, open an issue labeled program." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/", "/open-problems/the-question-of-questions/", "/programs/the-open-problems/", "/programs/charitology-fellowship/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Millennium Prize Problems", "url": "https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/", "publisher": "Clay Mathematics Institute" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nEvery one of the [Open Problems of Charitology](/open-problems/) states what would count as progress. Question Bounties would put a cash prize on that test. Whoever produces a result that meets it, wherever they are, would win.\n\nPrizes for hard questions have a track record. In 2000 the Clay Mathematics Institute put a $1 million prize on each of seven unsolved problems in mathematics. One of them, the Poincaré conjecture, has since been solved.\n\n## How it works\n\nEach prize would be attached to one open problem. Its size would depend on how much the answer could change where money goes, which is the question [Open Problem 23, the Question of Questions](/open-problems/the-question-of-questions/), asks. Rules would be published before any prize opens: who judges, what evidence counts, how partial results are rewarded and how disputes are settled. Winning work would be published openly so the whole field can use it.\n\nToday every open problem says the same thing about its prize: unfunded. Prize money needs a legal home, either a legal entity or a fiscal sponsor, and judges with no stake in the outcome. Until those exist, the program accepts no money.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Missing Profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/) hypothesis asks whether a shared craft could help coordinate work on questions that cross fields. A prize pays for answers rather than positions, so a graduate student, a retired statistician or a team in another country can work on a question without first finding an employer. Many of the open problems are measurement problems, so prizes also put money into the [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/), which the program proposes to help close.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nPrizes reward people who can afford to work before they are paid, and they can pull effort toward questions that are easy to judge. The program would reward partial results and pair prizes with the [Charitology Fellowship](/programs/charitology-fellowship/), so the work isn’t limited to people with spare time and money.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years of funding, at least three prizes have been awarded, at least one of them for a partial result, and the winning work has changed how some money is given." }, { "id": "red-team", "path": "/programs/red-team/", "title": "Red Team", "group": "Research", "order": 11, "summary": "A standing practice of attacking Charitology’s own claims. Every entry page links to a prefilled GitHub issue for challenging what it says.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Every entry page has a “Challenge a claim” link that opens a prefilled GitHub issue labeled red-team.", "conditions": [ "silence-about-failure", "single-lens" ], "firstMilestone": "The first public red-team review of Charitology’s method, with every challenge and response published and the changes it forced listed.", "help": [ "Pick a claim you doubt and use the “Challenge a claim” link on its page.", "Argue from a moral framework you don’t hold against a page that leaves it out.", "Add evidence for or against an open issue labeled red-team." ], "related": [ "/record/methodology/", "/record/disagreements/", "/diagnosis/", "/contribute/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nA red team is a group whose job is to attack a plan before reality does. Charitology’s Red Team is a standing practice rather than a committee. Anyone can join, and the target is Charitology itself. Every claim on the site, from a number in a condition to the depth scale itself, is open to challenge.\n\n## How it works\n\nEvery entry page ends with a “Challenge a claim” link. It opens a GitHub issue labeled `red-team`, prefilled with the page’s address and a prompt asking what should change and what the source is. Challenges are discussed in public. When one holds up, the page changes in the open, and significant corrections are noted in the pull request that makes them.\n\nSome claims get a deeper review. Charitology publishes no ratings or rankings of named organizations until its method has passed public red-team review. Running that review is this program’s first major task, and the programs that would rank organizations, such as [the Charitology Fund](/programs/the-charitology-fund/), wait on it.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/) applies to Charitology too. A field that studies other people’s mistakes has to publish its own first, or it teaches the opposite of what it says. The Red Team makes being wrong in public routine, and a corrected page counts as progress.\n\nIt also guards against the [Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/). A site written mostly by people who share one framework can miss what other frameworks see. Red-teamers are invited to argue from a framework they don’t hold, and a challenge that shows a missing perspective is treated as a finding.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA red team only works if people show up, and it can drift toward easy targets such as typos instead of the claims that matter most. Challengers are invited to start with the conditions labeled hypothesis on the [Diagnosis](/diagnosis/), because so much of the field is built on them.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin two years, the method has passed a public red-team review and every major claim has been challenged at least once. The record shows claims that changed because someone proved them wrong." }, { "id": "moral-frameworks-program", "path": "/programs/moral-frameworks-program/", "title": "Moral Frameworks Program", "group": "Research", "order": 2, "summary": "Compare editorial cause priorities through eight moral lenses, test your own weights and keep a reasoned deliberation record.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live comparison and deliberation software uses eight draft framework sketches and 17 cause areas. Independent review by people who hold each view remains a milestone.", "conditions": [ "single-lens" ], "firstMilestone": "Every framework sketch reviewed by at least two people who hold that framework, with their changes merged and credited.", "help": [ "Review the framework closest to your own values in src/data/frameworks.json and open a pull request explaining any score you would change.", "Open an issue labeled program proposing a framework or tradition the file leaves out.", "Write up a disagreement between two frameworks for the Disagreement Register." ], "related": [ "/tools/values-compass/", "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "/record/disagreements/", "/open-problems/moral-parliament-in-practice/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nCompare two cause areas through every lens, change the weights and inspect the equal-weight baseline. Save your reasons, disagreements and proposed corrections in the [deliberation workspace](#workspace-moral-frameworks-program). Its indices average editorial sketches; they do not measure moral truth or charity effectiveness.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nAsk a welfare-minded giver, a justice-minded giver and a giver guided by faith to rank the same causes, and you get three different lists. The Moral Frameworks Program studies those differences on purpose. It maintains `src/data/frameworks.json`, the open file behind the [Values Compass](/tools/values-compass/) and the [Portfolio Builder](/tools/portfolio-builder/).\n\n## How it works\n\nThe file describes eight frameworks: welfare, rights and duties, justice, care, faith and tradition, future generations, all life and flourishing. For each one it records the question the framework asks, a few thinkers associated with it and a priority from 0 to 5 for each of 17 cause areas.\n\nThose numbers are editorial sketches, not measurements, and the file says so. Real philosophers disagree inside every framework. So the program’s main work is review. People who hold a framework check its sketch, argue about the scores in public and change them by pull request with their reasons attached. Where two frameworks reach opposite conclusions about the same gift, the program writes the disagreement up for the [Disagreement Register](/record/disagreements/).\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/) is the condition Charitology was founded to treat: considering several frameworks may reveal choices that one lens misses. This is a hypothesis, not a measured claim about most givers. A shared, public map of the frameworks turns an invisible lens into a visible choice. A giver can see their own priorities, see how the same money looks through the other seven lenses and decide knowing both. The map also gives researchers a common starting point for [Open Problem 16, Moral Parliament in Practice](/open-problems/moral-parliament-in-practice/), which asks how to allocate money when you aren’t sure which framework is right.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA score from 0 to 5 can flatten a tradition that took centuries to build, and it can look more precise than it is. The file already labels its scores as sketches. The program would add who reviewed each sketch and keep the reasoning next to the number. Eight frameworks are also not all of them, and the list can grow whenever someone makes a good case for a missing one.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin three years, every framework has been reviewed by people who hold it and the sketches have changed because of that review. The tools built on them show the reasoning and reviewers behind each score." }, { "id": "policy-program", "path": "/programs/policy-program/", "title": "Policy Program", "group": "Reach", "order": 5, "summary": "Applies Charitology’s research to public budgets for aid and social programs, publishing analysis of their evidence, their mix of relief and prevention and their long-run costs.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A policy brief workspace compares a stated baseline and options, sourced claims, equity and participation, uncertainty and follow-up tasks. Optional discounted monetary scenarios show their assumptions without ranking options or claiming government adoption.", "conditions": [ "symptom-trap", "short-horizon" ], "firstMilestone": "Export one draft options brief with evidence gaps, distributional questions and a review plan. Publication as a reviewed analysis and use by agencies remain future work.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program proposing a public program or budget line for a first analysis.", "Share public evaluation plans or learning agendas published by government agencies.", "Offer to review the first analysis if you work in public budgeting or evaluation." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/the-government-question/", "/open-problems/discounting-the-future/", "/record/country-profiles/", "/programs/evidence-reviews/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "What Works Network", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-works-network", "publisher": "GOV.UK" }, { "title": "H.R.4174, Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018", "url": "https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4174", "publisher": "Congress.gov, Library of Congress", "year": 2019 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the policy brief workspace\n\n[Jump to the working workspace](#pw-title).\n\nSet the decision, jurisdiction, population, status quo and time horizon below. Describe feasible alternatives and their causal assumptions, then attach evidence claims, limits, equity questions and a review plan. The draft keeps unpriced outcomes and missing voices visible.\n\nOptional monetary scenarios use incremental costs and benefits relative to your baseline in a common price-year unit. Upfront cost occurs at year zero; constant annual costs and benefits occur at year end. A low-to-high benefit range is a scenario, not a confidence interval. The calculator does not add inflation, risk or distribution weights, price rights or recommend an option. Enter zero and describe an unpriced effect when monetization is inappropriate.\n\nExport a complete Markdown options brief, CSV inputs and calculations or an editable JSON backup. Nothing is filed with a government or published. The review, research and adoption goals below remain proposals.\n\n## What it is\n\nPublic budgets for aid and social programs face the same questions as private giving: what works, where on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) the money acts and how far ahead it looks. The Policy Program would apply Charitology’s research to those budgets and publish what it finds for anyone to use.\n\n## How it works\n\nEach analysis would take one public program or budget line and ask four questions. What does the evidence say about the interventions it pays for, drawing on [Evidence Reviews](/programs/evidence-reviews/)? How is the money split between relief, repair, prevention, structure and source? What are its costs and benefits over ten or twenty years, not just one budget cycle? And who was consulted on its design, including the people it serves?\n\nThe program would build on government work that already exists. The UK’s What Works Network, made up of independent What Works Centres, uses evidence to improve how public services are designed and delivered. In the United States, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which became law in January 2019, requires covered federal agencies to plan evidence-building and designate evaluation officers.\n\nThe program would publish analysis. It wouldn’t lobby for bills, endorse candidates or take sides between parties.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nCharitology’s hypothesis is that public budgets feel the same pulls as private giving. The [Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/) favors relief that is visible today, and the [Short Horizon](/diagnosis/short-horizon/) favors results that show up within a budget cycle, while the payoff from prevention can take years. Showing a program’s depth mix and long-run costs would give budget makers the view Charitology asks private givers to take, and would test whether the hypothesis holds for public money.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nPrivate analysis of public money raises its own question about influence without accountability. That is [Open Problem 21, the Government Question](/open-problems/the-government-question/). The program would publish its methods and data, invite the agencies it studies to respond and stay out of partisan politics.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the program has published analyses of several public programs and at least one has been cited in a public budget debate. Agencies have used its depth-and-horizon method in their own evaluations." }, { "id": "replication-program", "path": "/programs/replication-program/", "title": "Replication Program", "group": "Research", "order": 6, "summary": "Write and freeze local replication protocols, fork amendments and export the design, analysis rules and review plan.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "Live replication-planning software saves immutable local versions and exports protocols. Browser timestamps are not public registration; studies, participant safeguards and independent replications still need people and resources.", "conditions": [ "silence-about-failure", "measurement-gap" ], "firstMilestone": "A list of 20 influential charity impact findings, chosen by published rules, with a replication plan for each registered before any results are known.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program proposing a study to re-test, with a link to its data if the data is public.", "Re-run the analysis of a study whose data and code are public, and publish what you find, whatever it is.", "Critique the rules for choosing which studies to re-test." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/the-replication-rate/", "/programs/evidence-reviews/", "/programs/failure-lab/", "/record/evidence-library/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science", "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/26315443", "publisher": "Open Science Collaboration, Science 349(6251)", "year": 2015 }, { "title": "Re-analysis of health and educational impacts of a school-based deworming programme in western Kenya: a pure replication", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4681107/", "publisher": "Alexander M. Aiken, Calum Davey, James R. Hargreaves and Richard J. Hayes, International Journal of Epidemiology 44(5)", "year": 2015 }, { "title": "Commentary: Deworming externalities and schooling impacts in Kenya: a comment on Aiken et al. (2015) and Davey et al. (2015)", "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/26203170", "publisher": "Joan Hamory Hicks, Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel, International Journal of Epidemiology 44(5)", "year": 2015 } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the live research desk\n\nChoose a claim from a primary study and fill in the [replication planner](#workspace-replication-program). State the population, outcome, analysis, exclusions and stopping rule before inspecting the result. Freeze a local version, fork any amendment and export it for independent review or an external registry. This software does not conduct experiments or independently timestamp a preregistration.\n\nYour workspace stays in this browser. Save records, edit them or fork frozen versions, export JSON, a research memo or CSV, and import a backup with an explicit replacement step. Deleting or clearing offers an undo while the page remains open. No notes are submitted to Charitology. The institutional goals below remain the program’s longer-term charter.\n\n## What it is\n\nA single study can be informative without settling a question. In 2015 the Open Science Collaboration repeated 100 published psychology studies. Ninety-seven percent of the originals had reported statistically significant results. Only 36 percent of the repeats did. Charitology has not established an equivalent sector-wide rate for charity impact research. That is [Open Problem 10, the Replication Rate](/open-problems/the-replication-rate/), and the Replication Program exists to answer it.\n\n## How it works\n\nA replication can mean re-analyzing the original data or running the study again somewhere new. The program would do both. It would choose studies by fixed rules, such as how often they are cited and how much money relies on them, and publish the list and the analysis plan before any results come in. Every result would be published, including the ones that hold up.\n\nCharity research has done this before, in public. In 2015 a team re-analyzed an influential 1998–99 school deworming study from western Kenya, using the original data and methods. It was possible because the original researchers shared their data and analysis files. Most results were reproduced. Some were not, including an effect on attendance at nearby schools, for which little evidence remained once coding errors were corrected. The original researchers replied in the same issue of the journal. The program aims for the same openness every time: shared data, published plans and replies printed next to results.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/) applies to research too. A standing program makes re-testing routine, so a finding that doesn’t hold up is published as ordinary news rather than buried or treated as a scandal. It also treats the [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) from the other side. Measurement helps only if the measurements can be trusted, and replication is how a field learns which ones can.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA failed replication doesn’t mean the first team did anything wrong. Places change, programs change and chance plays a part. The program would report results without blame and invite the original authors to respond alongside every result.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, the program has published replications of at least 20 influential findings and an estimate of the replication rate with confidence bounds, and donors can see a replication status next to the studies they rely on." }, { "id": "the-charitology-prize", "path": "/programs/the-charitology-prize/", "title": "The Charitology Prize", "group": "Funding", "order": 4, "summary": "A planned yearly award for published work that changed where generosity goes or how well it is aimed, with a category for the best published failure.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "An award needs prize money, an independent jury and a legal home. The program waits on partners and a proper legal and governance setup, and it accepts no money now.", "conditions": [ "prestige-economy", "silence-about-failure" ], "firstMilestone": "Published categories, judging criteria and an independent jury, with the criteria tested in a public red-team review.", "help": [ "Open an issue labeled program proposing a category and how it should be judged.", "Add a published failure report you learned from to the Failure Archive, so the field has examples to judge against.", "If your institution could host the award or serve on the jury, open an issue labeled program." ], "related": [ "/record/failure-archive/", "/open-problems/the-status-flip/", "/open-problems/the-failure-commons/", "/programs/failure-lab/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "Instituut voor Briljante Mislukkingen (Institute of Brilliant Failures)", "url": "https://www.briljantemislukkingen.nl/", "publisher": "Instituut voor Briljante Mislukkingen", "note": "In Dutch." } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nThe Charitology Prize would honor, once a year, published work that changed where generosity goes or how well it is aimed: a study, a dataset, a method, a tool or a report. It would recognize pieces of work, not rate organizations. One category would be reserved for the best published failure, an honest account of something that didn’t work, written so others can learn from it.\n\nAwards for failure already exist. In the Netherlands, the Institute of Brilliant Failures gives Brilliant Failures awards in fields such as health care and the use of AI in the public sector.\n\n## How it works\n\nAn independent jury would choose winners from public nominations against published criteria, and each choice would be announced with its reasons. The failure category would be judged on honesty, on how useful its lessons are to others and on whether the people a program served were protected in the telling. Before the first award, the criteria would go through public [red-team](/programs/red-team/) review, in keeping with Charitology’s rule that no named organization is ranked until its method has passed that review.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Prestige Economy](/diagnosis/prestige-economy/) gives status to the size and visibility of a gift rather than to what it achieved. A prize is a status signal, and this one would point that signal at results.\n\nThe failure category would treat the [Silence About Failure](/diagnosis/silence-about-failure/) directly. Today a published failure can cost the next grant. A prize would turn the same act into an honor and give funders a public reason to treat honesty as a strength.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nAny prize can be gamed or turn into one more gala. This one would sell no naming rights, publish its jury’s reasoning and keep its own costs small next to the work it honors. Whether recognition changes behavior at all is a hypothesis, and testing it is [Open Problem 15, the Status Flip](/open-problems/the-status-flip/).\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years of the first award, organizations cite the prize when they publish their failures, and the failure category draws more entries every year." }, { "id": "the-open-problems", "path": "/programs/the-open-problems/", "title": "The Open Problems of Charitology", "group": "Research", "order": 1, "summary": "A public list of 23 proposed unanswered questions in doing good, each precise enough to work on, with progress tracked in the open.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "All 23 problems are published and open for work. Prizes wait on the Question Bounties program.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession", "measurement-gap", "symptom-trap" ], "firstMilestone": "The first partial result on any open problem, published and reviewed in public.", "help": [ "Pick a problem and open an issue with your approach, data or partial result.", "Propose a new problem with a pull request to src/content/problems/.", "Help design the unfunded Question Bounties program; it accepts no money now." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/", "/record/progress-report/", "/programs/question-bounties/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nInspired by the idea of a public research agenda, Charitology’s [Open Problems](/open-problems/) set out 23 proposed questions about giving. Each one turns a condition from the [Diagnosis](/diagnosis/) into a question precise enough that someone could answer it, with a stated test for what would count as progress.\n\n## How it works\n\nEvery problem is a public page and a file in the repository. Anyone can work on one. Approaches, datasets and partial results go into GitHub issues tagged `open-problem`, where they are discussed in public. When a result holds up under review, the problem’s status moves from `open` to `partial` or `solved`, and the [Progress Report](/record/progress-report/) records it.\n\nThe list itself is open to revision. A new problem gets in when it names a condition it would treat and states what would count as progress.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nA field is defined as much by its questions as by its answers. Some questions cross disciplines, causes and funders. This agenda offers a place to coordinate work on them; it does not claim that nobody is already studying them. Naming them gives researchers a target, funders a portfolio and newcomers a place to start, which is the first step toward [the missing profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/).\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, at least five problems have published partial results that change how a meaningful amount of money is given, and the list has been revised at least once because the field learned something." }, { "id": "the-charitology-fund", "path": "/programs/the-charitology-fund/", "title": "The Charitology Fund", "group": "Funding", "order": 1, "summary": "One pooled fund that would always give to the field’s current best estimate of where money does the most good. It does not exist yet and accepts no money.", "status": "partners", "statusNote": "The fund needs a legal entity, a fiscal sponsor and independent governance before it can exist. It accepts nothing now, so please don’t send money.", "conditions": [ "symptom-trap", "story-bias", "single-lens" ], "firstMilestone": "A published governance charter, a legal entity and fiscal sponsor in place and an allocation method that has passed public red-team review, all before a single gift is accepted.", "help": [ "Critique the allocation approach on this page by opening an issue labeled program.", "If you work with a fiscal sponsor, a foundation or a nonprofit law practice that could help, open an issue labeled program.", "Draft one part of the governance charter, such as conflict-of-interest rules, in an issue labeled program." ], "related": [ "/tools/portfolio-builder/", "/record/gap-map/", "/programs/red-team/", "/open-problems/moral-parliament-in-practice/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "What is fiscal sponsorship? How do I find a fiscal sponsor?", "url": "https://learning.candid.org/resources/knowledge-base/fiscal-sponsorship/", "publisher": "Candid Learning" } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## What it is\n\nThe Charitology Fund would let anyone give to the field’s current best estimate of where money does the most good, without doing the research themselves. When the estimate changed, the grants would change with it.\n\n## How it works\n\n“Best” depends on values, so the estimate would be built in the open from Charitology’s research. The fund would split money across the moral frameworks the field tracks, using a published method such as the credence-weighted one in the [Portfolio Builder](/tools/portfolio-builder/). It would also set a deliberate mix across the [depth scale](/method/#depth), so relief for today and work on sources are both funded on purpose. Within each part, it would give to the strongest opportunities the research can find, including gaps on the [Gap Map](/record/gap-map/).\n\nEvery grant, weight and change would be published with its reasons. An independent board, separate from the people who write the research, would approve allocations, and every conflict of interest would be disclosed.\n\nFirst, though, the fund needs three things: a legal entity, a fiscal sponsor and independent governance. A fiscal sponsor is an existing public charity that receives gifts for a project and manages them under a formal agreement. Until all three are in place, the fund accepts nothing.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThree conditions pull money away from the best estimate, and one fund could push back on all three. The [Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/) sends gifts toward the most visible need, while the fund would allocate by evidence and scale. The [Symptom Trap](/diagnosis/symptom-trap/) favors relief that is easy to see, while the fund would set its depth mix on purpose. The [Single Lens](/diagnosis/single-lens/) hides whole categories of good, while the fund would give across frameworks with its weights in plain view.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nA single fund that many people follow could become a new gatekeeper, one of the problems Charitology exists to study. Its estimate will sometimes be wrong. The charter would cap the share any one grantee can receive and publish dissent from reviewers. And because a fund’s grants are rankings in practice, the allocation method would have to pass public [red-team review](/programs/red-team/) first: Charitology publishes no rankings of named organizations until its method has done so.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years of opening, the fund’s allocation is a public reference point, and anyone can check its record of changing grants when the evidence changed." }, { "id": "university-chapters", "path": "/programs/university-chapters/", "title": "University Chapters", "group": "People and education", "order": 3, "summary": "Student clubs that study and practice charitology together, using a free chapter kit whose sessions also contribute real work to the field.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A local chapter-launch workspace includes six facilitated session agendas, responsibilities, tasks, draft constitution and invitation, handover prompts and JSON/CSV/Markdown exports. No recognized chapters or university partnerships are claimed.", "conditions": [ "missing-profession", "story-bias" ], "firstMilestone": "Use the kit to plan a term and run a first meeting with the institution’s permission. A multi-university pilot and published results remain future work.", "help": [ "Start a pilot chapter at your university and open an issue labeled program so others can find you.", "Draft or improve one session of the chapter kit in an issue labeled program.", "If your student group already runs sessions on giving, share what works in an issue labeled program." ], "related": [ "/programs/principles-course/", "/tools/values-compass/", "/tools/forecasting-platform/", "/contribute/" ], "sources": [], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the chapter launch workspace\n\n[Jump to the working workspace](#pw-title).\n\nBuild a term plan below. The fictional example supplies six sessions with timed agendas, readings and concrete outputs, plus launch tasks and role descriptions. Add your own dates, access arrangements and decision rules. Save each form, then export a complete Markdown kit containing the plan, a draft constitution, invitation and handover prompts. JSON restores the editable workspace; CSV opens the saved records in a spreadsheet.\n\nThe kit does not register a chapter, obtain university approval or submit anything publicly. Keep private contact details elsewhere and check your institution’s rules. The network and adoption goals below remain proposals.\n\n## What it is\n\nA University Chapter would be a student club that studies charitology and does some of its work. Chapters would be open to any student in any field, whatever their views on giving. They wouldn’t raise, hold or direct money in Charitology’s name.\n\n## How it works\n\nEach chapter would start from a free chapter kit: a term of sessions that need no outside speakers and no budget.\n\n1. **Values night.** Members take the [Values Compass](/tools/values-compass/), compare results and talk about where their frameworks part ways.\n2. **Story and scale.** Members compare an appeal built around one person with an appeal built around the size of a problem, then discuss which they would fund and why.\n3. **Depth coding.** Members code a sample of organizations on the [depth scale](/method/#depth) from public filings and submit the results to the [Depth Census](/open-problems/the-depth-census/).\n4. **Forecast night.** Members add forecasts to open questions on the [Forecasting Platform](/tools/forecasting-platform/).\n5. **Red-team night.** Members pick a claim on this site, try to break it and file what they find.\n6. **Reading group.** One chapter of the [Principles of Charitology](/record/principles/) at a time.\n\nChapters would publish what they learn but never ratings of named charities.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nThe [Missing Profession](/diagnosis/missing-profession/) starts with people. A chapter would give students a place to learn the craft before their careers and giving habits are set, and the kit would make their meetings count as real contributions to the field.\n\nThe second session would treat the [Story Bias](/diagnosis/story-bias/). Reading about the bias is one thing. Feeling its pull yourself, and then talking it through with friends, is another. Noticing a bias doesn’t switch it off, as [Open Problem 7](/open-problems/story-without-bias/) points out, but it gives a giver a moment to check a decision against the size of the need.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nStudent clubs rise and fall with their founders. The full kit would be written so a new organizer can run any session straight from the page, and chapters would share notes so a session that works in one place spreads to the rest.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, chapters at 25 universities on several continents run the kit every year, and their depth coding is a meaningful part of the Depth Census." }, { "id": "time-charitology", "path": "/programs/time-charitology/", "title": "Time Charitology", "group": "Reach", "order": 3, "summary": "Studies the best use of volunteer hours, so people who give time can see which roles help most and organizations can see what each kind of help is worth to them.", "status": "live", "statusNote": "A working volunteer planner compares direct service, travel, preparation, skills and staff support, checks weekly capacity and logs actual hours and observations. Optional personal-cost arithmetic never estimates social value. An organization survey and placements are not operating.", "conditions": [ "measurement-gap", "missing-feedback-loop" ], "firstMilestone": "Build and review one realistic volunteer plan with an organization. The proposed survey of at least 50 organizations remains a research milestone.", "help": [ "If you manage volunteers, open an issue labeled program describing which roles help most and which cost more than they return.", "Help design the organization survey for Open Problem 19.", "Describe a volunteer role that changed something lasting, not just one day’s work." ], "related": [ "/open-problems/the-money-time-exchange/", "/programs/methods-lab/", "/programs/local-charitology/", "/tools/impact-calculator/" ], "sources": [ { "title": "U.S. Volunteerism Rebounding After COVID-19 Pandemic", "url": "https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/11/civic-engagement-and-volunteerism.html", "publisher": "Laura Hanson Schlachter and Tim Marshall, U.S. Census Bureau, reporting joint research with AmeriCorps", "year": 2024 }, { "title": "Value of Volunteer Time", "url": "https://independentsector.org/research/value-of-volunteer-time/", "publisher": "Independent Sector and the Do Good Institute, University of Maryland", "year": 2026, "note": "The 2025 figure uses preliminary data and may be revised." } ], "review": "draft", "body": "## Use the volunteer planner\n\n[Jump to the working workspace](#pw-title).\n\nEnter available hours and skills, then compare possible roles below. The planner counts direct service, travel and preparation in your weekly commitment. It shows staff support separately and flags commitments above your capacity. Skills matching is a literal text prompt for a conversation, not a qualification check.\n\nMark roles Planned or Active to include them in the weekly plan. Confirm requirements with the organization and log actual hours and observations after volunteering. An optional hourly input illustrates your own opportunity cost; it does not estimate impact or rank organizations. Export the plan and review questions as Markdown, records as CSV or an editable JSON backup. No openings, placements or messages are arranged. The research program below remains proposed.\n\n## What it is\n\nMany people give time as well as money. In the year to September 2023, more than 75 million people in the United States aged 16 and older volunteered through an organization, giving an estimated 4.99 billion hours. Time Charitology would ask how hours like those can do the most good, and help both volunteers and organizations find out.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe usual way to value volunteer time gives every hour the same price. Independent Sector puts the value of a U.S. volunteer hour at $36.14 for 2025, based on average hourly earnings plus benefits. That number is useful for budgets, but it can’t say whether an hour spent sorting donations, tutoring a child or rebuilding a nonprofit’s database did the most good.\n\nThe program would start where [Open Problem 19, the Money-Time Exchange](/open-problems/the-money-time-exchange/), suggests: ask organizations what an hour of each kind of help is worth to them, including the staff time needed to manage it, and compare that with the volunteer’s wage. From there it would build plain guidance for volunteers: which roles need skills an organization can’t easily buy, when giving an hour’s wages would do more and where time can reach upstream, such as serving on a board or lending professional skills to work on a problem’s sources.\n\n## Why it matters for the system\n\nVolunteer time sits deep inside the [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/). Some volunteering is invaluable, and some costs an organization more to manage than it returns, so role-specific evidence is more useful than assuming every hour has the same effect. Volunteers also face their own [Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/): they know the hours they gave, but little in the system reports back what those hours changed. Time Charitology would measure the value of different roles and send that signal back to the people choosing them.\n\n## Risks and limits\n\nValuing time only by results can miss what volunteering does for volunteers and their communities, such as friendship, belonging and trust. The care and flourishing frameworks count those goods, and the program would report them rather than price them away.\n\n## What success looks like\n\nWithin five years, volunteers can look up how organizations value different roles, and organizations use the guidance to design roles that make the most of the time people offer." } ] }