Charitology
Tool · For nonprofits and funders

Grant Evaluator

Review a proposal on nine dimensions, from source depth to risk of harm, keep unknowns as unknowns, compare your saved proposals side by side and export a review memo.

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Review a proposal

New proposal.
For your own records. Everything stays in this browser.

Score each dimension from 0 to 4, or leave it unknown. Unknown is an honest answer: it marks what you still need to find out.

Source depth

Where on the chain from symptom to source does the work act?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. Relief: meets the need today.
  2. Repair: restores what was lost.
  3. Prevention: stops it happening to these people.
  4. Structure: changes the rules that produce it.
  5. Source: changes what feeds many problems at once.

Depth describes where work acts. It isn’t a grade, and every level is needed. Weight it by how far upstream you want this grant to reach. Symptoms and sources.

Evidence

How well do we know that this kind of work does what the proposal claims?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. No evidence offered, or the evidence points the other way.
  2. Stories, testimonials or counts of activities only.
  3. The applicant’s own outcome data, with no comparison group.
  4. At least one rigorous study of this or a very similar program.
  5. Several rigorous studies agree, including in a setting like this one.
Counterfactual

Would this happen anyway without this grant?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. It would clearly happen anyway, or it is already funded.
  2. Other funders would probably step in.
  3. It would probably happen, but later or smaller.
  4. It probably wouldn’t happen at this scale without this grant.
  5. There is clear evidence it won’t happen without this grant.

Open Problem 4, the Counterfactual Problem.

Feedback and learning

Does the applicant measure what changes, and change course when it learns something?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. No plan to measure what changes.
  2. Counts activities, not what changed.
  3. Measures some outcomes, but results don’t clearly shape the plan.
  4. Measures outcomes and has changed course because of them.
  5. Learns in public, including publishing what didn’t work.
Voice of the people served

Do the people the work serves shape what it does?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. They weren’t asked.
  2. They were asked once, for example in a needs survey.
  3. They are asked for feedback regularly, and some of it is acted on.
  4. They help design the work or sit where decisions are made.
  5. They lead the work or control key decisions, including money.
Cost-effectiveness

How much good per dollar, compared with other ways to reach the same goal?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. Likely far more costly than other ways to reach the same goal.
  2. More costly than the alternatives you know of.
  3. About in line with the alternatives.
  4. Better than most alternatives, on a credible estimate.
  5. Among the best known ways to reach the goal, on an estimate others have checked.

If nobody has estimated it, leave it unknown rather than scoring 0. Make an estimate with the Cost-Effectiveness Model Kit.

Durability

How long do the results last after the money stops?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. The benefit stops when the grant stops.
  2. It lasts months after the grant ends.
  3. It lasts a few years.
  4. It lasts a generation, or someone else, such as a government, keeps it going.
  5. It is permanent, or keeps going on its own without more funding.
Team and track record

Can this team do what it proposes?

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. No relevant experience and no plan to get it.
  2. Some relevant experience, but no record of similar work.
  3. Has done similar work at a smaller scale.
  4. Has done similar work at this scale.
  5. Has done similar work at this scale more than once, with results checked by others.
Risk of harm

Could the work make things worse, and is that risk managed? Higher scores mean safer.

Unknown: not enough information to score yet.

Guide for every score
  1. Serious harm is plausible, with no plan to manage it.
  2. Serious harm is plausible, and the plan to manage it is weak.
  3. Some risk of harm, with a reasonable plan to watch for it.
  4. Low risk of harm, and it is monitored.
  5. Very low risk, with independent safeguards and a way for people to raise concerns.

Harm can come from crowding out local markets or services, creating dependency or delaying reform. Open Problem 20, When Charity Harms.

Weighted score

This is a missing-data range, not a confidence interval. The low end counts every unknown as 0 and the high end counts it as 4. Scoring an unknown narrows the range. It says nothing about how sure you are of the scores you gave.

Weights (all equal)

How much each dimension counts. They start equal. Set one to 0 to leave it out. The weights apply to every saved proposal, so their scores stay comparable.

Saved proposals

Every saved proposal is scored with the current weights, so the ranges compare like with like.

Restricted or unrestricted? A good review is a reason to trust the team’s judgment. Tying a grant to specific line items and short timelines can keep an organization from adapting, investing in itself or going after root causes. If a proposal scores well, consider flexible, multi-year support, and hold it accountable for results rather than line items. See the Restriction Reflex. When restriction helps is still an open question: Open Problem 8, the Optimal Restriction.

How it works

Score a proposal on nine dimensions:

  1. Source depth: where the work acts, from relief to source, on the depth scale
  2. Evidence: how well we know this kind of work does what the proposal claims
  3. Counterfactual: whether it would happen anyway without this grant
  4. Feedback and learning: whether the applicant measures what changes and changes course
  5. Voice of the people served: whether the people the work serves shape what it does
  6. Cost-effectiveness: how much good per dollar, compared with other ways to reach the goal
  7. Durability: how long results last after the money stops
  8. Team and track record: whether this team can do what it proposes
  9. Risk of harm: scored so that higher means safer

Each dimension takes a score from 0 to 4, with a one-line guide for every score, or “unknown”. Each has a notes field for your reasoning. You can save as many proposals as you like in your browser, compare them in one table and download a review memo in Markdown or the full record as JSON.

Unknown stays unknown

A form that demands a number in every box makes a reviewer who doesn’t know guess, and the guess disappears into the total. Here, unknown is an answer.

The weighted result is a range. Its low end counts every unknown as 0 and its high end counts every unknown as 4. With nothing unknown, the range closes to a single value. This is a missing-data range, not a confidence interval: it shows how much the answer could move once the missing facts are in, not how sure you are of the scores you gave. The unknowns are listed as the questions to ask before deciding.

Weights start equal and you can change them. The same weights apply to every saved proposal, so the comparison table compares like with like.

Why these dimensions

Each one checks for a condition in the Diagnosis. Source depth makes the choice between relief and source work visible, against the Symptom Trap. Voice of the people served asks who decides, against the Missing Voice. Feedback, counterfactual and cost-effectiveness ask what the money changes, not how it is spent.

Depth describes; it doesn’t grade. Every level of work is needed. Weight depth by how far upstream you want a particular grant to reach.

What it isn’t

It isn’t a rating of any organization, and its scores aren’t measurements. The guides are editorial judgments, published in src/lib/client/rubric.ts for anyone to challenge. A rubric can’t replace talking with the applicant and the people they serve.

It doesn’t tell you how to fund. A strong review is a reason to trust a team’s judgment, and tying the grant to line items and short timelines can undo that. Read the Restriction Reflex before you set conditions. When restriction helps is still Open Problem 8.

Everything stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, and clearing your browser’s storage removes your saved proposals, so download the JSON to keep a copy.