Charity is a system. This is what’s wrong with it.
Fifteen conditions of the charity system, each placed where it acts and labeled with how strong the evidence is. None of them is anyone’s fault. All of them can be fixed.
- 1
Givers
Individuals 64% · Foundations 19% · Bequests 10% · Corporations 7%
U.S. giving by source, 2025
- 2
Signals
Stories, faces, overhead ratios, rankings, prestige, tax breaks
- 3
Channels
Charities, foundations, donor-advised funds, giving platforms
- 4
The work
- Source
- Structure
- Prevention
- Repair
- Relief
- 5
Outcomes
Lives, institutions, futures
No judgment of the good being done
Every food bank, clinic and volunteer on Earth is doing real good. Charitology doesn’t grade anyone’s heart. It studies the system that decides where their generosity lands.
The system is the subject
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets,” goes a line from improvement science, usually credited to Paul Batalden. If generosity keeps landing on symptoms, look at the system that aims it.
Unknown stays unknown
A science says what it doesn’t know. Of the fifteen conditions, 1 are established, 3 documented, 5 debated and 6 are Charitology’s own hypotheses, waiting to be tested.
All fifteen conditions
The Missing Feedback Loop
When donors pay for services used by others, they may struggle to judge quality. Feedback and evaluation can help close that information gap.
The Overhead Myth
Donors judge charities by how little they spend on staff, systems and fundraising, which starves organizations of what good work depends on.
The Story Bias
Stories and news coverage can affect giving and relief decisions. How strong these effects are, and how well some classic findings replicate, remain debated.
The Symptom Trap
Money flows most easily to visible, immediate relief and least easily to the slow work on sources that would stop problems coming back.
The Restriction Reflex
Project restrictions and short grants can limit flexibility. Survey evidence documents the concern; the effects of different grant designs need comparison.
The Silence About Failure
Charitology hypothesizes that fear of losing support discourages failure reporting. Published failure reports show a response, but do not measure the prevalence or funding cost of silence.
The Measurement Gap
Counting activity does not establish what changed because of it. Measuring that change can require resources and methods beyond routine reporting.
The Fragmentation Problem
Separate organizations can duplicate costs or miss chances to coordinate. The size of this problem, and when coordination helps, are open questions.
Parked Money
Donor-advised funds hold assets already under charitable control. How quickly those assets should reach operating work is debated.
The Short Horizon
Charitology hypothesizes that short funding and reporting cycles can work against goals whose benefits take much longer to appear.
The Missing Voice
Funding decisions can leave the people served with little say. Listening and sharing decisions are documented responses; their effects depend on context.
The Prestige Economy
Charitology hypothesizes that public recognition can favor a gift’s size and visibility over its results. The size of that effect is not established here.
The Single Lens
Charitology hypothesizes that considering several moral frameworks can reveal choices a single framework misses. It has not measured how many givers use only one.
The Proximity Pull
Local ties and distant needs can point giving in different directions. Comparing them requires evidence about outcomes and an account of special obligations.
The Missing Profession
Charitology proposes a shared craft for studying how generosity is aimed across causes and moral frameworks, building on existing philanthropy and evaluation professions.