Each entry takes a belief people commonly hold about giving and checks it against the evidence. Verdicts are false, misleading or half true, and each entry says what’s true in the belief before saying what isn’t, then suggests a better question to ask.
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A low overhead ratio means a good charity
Overhead ratios say how a charity splits its costs, not what it achieves. A charity can spend almost nothing on overhead and achieve nothing, or invest in good systems and change thousands of lives.
- Editorial verdict
- Misleading
- Related system conditions
- The Overhead Myth
Read the source list (2)
- The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle — Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2009
- 3 Major Charity Groups Ask Donors to Stop Focusing on Overhead Costs — The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2013
Aid never works
Some aid has failed, and economists still argue about how much aid raises countries’ growth. But specific, well-measured programs, from smallpox eradication to oral rehydration and cash transfers, have saved and improved millions of lives.
- Editorial verdict
- False
- Related system conditions
- The Measurement Gap · The Story Bias
Read the source list (5)
- Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth? — William Easterly, Journal of Economic Perspectives 17(3), 2003
- Counting Chickens When They Hatch: Timing and the Effects of Aid on Growth — Michael Clemens, Steven Radelet, Rikhil Bhavnani and Samuel Bazzi, Center for Global Development working paper 44, published in The Economic Journal 122(561), 2012
- The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health — Toby Ord, Center for Global Development, 2013
- The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya — Johannes Haushofer and Jeremy Shapiro, Quarterly Journal of Economics 131(4), 2016
- Insecticide-treated nets for preventing malaria (Cochrane systematic review) — Joseph Pryce, Marty Richardson and Christian Lengeler, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018
If a program sounds logical, it works
Plenty of programs with convincing logic have failed when tested, and some have caused harm. Scared Straight, which took teenagers into prisons to frighten them away from crime, made later offending more likely in randomized trials.
- Editorial verdict
- False
- Related system conditions
- The Measurement Gap · The Story Bias
Read the source list (5)
- Justice Department Discourages the Use of “Scared Straight” Programs — Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2011
- Scared Straight and Other Juvenile Awareness Programs for Preventing Juvenile Delinquency, a systematic review — Anthony Petrosino, Carolyn Turpin-Petrosino, Meghan E. Hollis-Peel and Julia G. Lavenberg, Campbell Systematic Reviews 2013:5, 2013
- Project DARE: no effects at 10-year follow-up — Donald R. Lynam and colleagues, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 67(4), 1999
- How effective is drug abuse resistance education? A meta-analysis of Project DARE outcome evaluations — Susan T. Ennett, Nancy S. Tobler, Christopher L. Ringwalt and Robert L. Flewelling, American Journal of Public Health 84(9), 1994
- Technology and Child Development: Evidence from the One Laptop per Child Program — Julian Cristia, Pablo Ibarrarán, Santiago Cueto, Ana Santiago and Eugenio Severín, American Economic Journal, Applied Economics 9(3), 2017
Most charities are about equally effective
The differences are enormous. Among health programs in poorer countries, the most cost-effective were estimated to do about 15,000 times as much good per dollar as the least, and ordinary donors guess the gap is far smaller than experts do.
- Editorial verdict
- False
- Related system conditions
- The Missing Feedback Loop · The Measurement Gap
Read the source list (3)
- The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health — Toby Ord, Center for Global Development, 2013
- Donors vastly underestimate differences in charities’ effectiveness — Lucius Caviola, Stefan Schubert, Elliot Teperman, David Moss, Spencer Greenberg and Nadira S. Faber, Judgment and Decision Making 15(4), 2020
- Errors in DCP2 cost-effectiveness estimate for deworming — GiveWell Blog, 2011
Sending clothes and supplies is the best way to help after a disaster
Disaster agencies ask for money, not goods. Cash lets responders buy exactly what is needed, often from local businesses, while unrequested goods have to be sorted, stored and moved by the same people trying to help.
- Editorial verdict
- False
- Related system conditions
- The Missing Voice · The Missing Feedback Loop
Read the source list (3)
- Volunteer and Donate — Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 2026
- How to Donate — National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
- Cash-based approaches in humanitarian emergencies: a systematic review — Shannon Doocy and Hannah Tappis, Campbell Systematic Reviews 2017:17, 2017
Small donations don’t make a difference
Small gifts add up, and individuals, not foundations or companies, give most of the money in American charity. A small gift can also do a lot on its own, because some programs cost very little per person helped. What a small gift achieves depends far more on where it goes than on its size.
- Editorial verdict
- False
- Related system conditions
- The Prestige Economy
Read the source list (5)
- The Giving USA 2026 Report Deserves a Closer Look — Bill Stanczykiewicz, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2026
- Real Time Charitable Giving — Aaron Smith, Pew Research Center, 2012
- Diarrhoeal disease, fact sheet — World Health Organization, 2024
- How Much Does It Cost to Save a Life? — GiveWell, 2024
- The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health — Toby Ord, Center for Global Development, 2013
The cause that moves you most needs your money most
What moves us is usually a face, a story or a headline, and those are not a measure of need. Being moved is a good reason to give, but the causes that move the most people often already draw the most money, while large, less visible problems go short.
- Editorial verdict
- Misleading
- Related system conditions
- The Story Bias · The Proximity Pull
Read the source list (2)
- “If I look at the mass I will never act”: Psychic numbing and genocide — Paul Slovic, Judgment and Decision Making 2(2), 2007
- Real Time Charitable Giving — Aaron Smith, Pew Research Center, 2012
You can’t measure the good a charity does
A great deal of it can be measured, often well. Thousands of randomized evaluations have tested anti-poverty programs, and their results have shaped programs reaching hundreds of millions of people. Some good really is hard to measure, which is a reason to measure carefully, not a reason not to.
- Editorial verdict
- Misleading
- Related system conditions
- The Measurement Gap
Read the source list (4)
- The Prize in Economic Sciences 2019, press release — The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2019
- About us — J-PAL (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab)
- The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya — Johannes Haushofer and Jeremy Shapiro, Quarterly Journal of Economics 131(4), 2016
- Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials — Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright, Social Science & Medicine 210, 2018