--- title: Methods Lab group: Research order: 3 summary: Compare ways of giving, preserve exact plan versions and connect artifact descriptions to self-recorded results and limitations. status: live statusNote: Local scenario planning and a protocol-to-artifact-to-result register are available. Ranges remain assumptions; file hashes and entered results establish no performed study or independent review. Staffed comparative research remains a milestone. 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' publisher: ODI year: 2016 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/ --- ## Use the live research desk Use 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. The artifact and results register preserves an exact plan version before connecting it to an artifact manifest and a dated, self-recorded result. Start a plan there or preview selected saved records from a Methods or Replication JSON export. A changed plan becomes an explicit amendment; earlier plans, artifacts and results remain distinct. Selecting a local file records a checksum without uploading or executing it. Keep the original claim beside the later report, with sources, deviations and limitations. An unavailable observation is different from a reported null finding or a zero estimate. The optional arithmetic difference requires an explicit comparability statement and matching known measures, units, populations and time horizons. It is not a pooled effect or causal verdict. This same private register opens in the [Replication Program](/programs/replication-program/). A complete backup includes every project and its saved raw draft, even when CSV or memo exports select fewer projects. Your 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. ## What it is People 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. ## How it works The 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. The 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. ## Why it matters for the system Each 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. Methods 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. ## Risks and limits Comparing 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. ## What success looks like Within 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.