Evidence-Based Philanthropy: A Guide for Effective Giving

1. Evidence-Based Philanthropy: What would you do next? Caroline Fiennes www.giving-evidence.com caroline.fiennes@giving-evidence.com Twitter: @carolinefiennes

2. Current and former clients ... and many anonymous donors

3. Press Coverage

6. Delivering chlorine to households • Cleaning the water source (e.g., the well) • Adding chlorine at the water source

7. From J-PAL (www.povertyactionlab.org)

8. Opportunity cost! From J-PAL (www.povertyactionlab.org)

10. “The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.” - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

11. Interventions Charities i.e., organisations Ways of giving i.e., how to do philanthropy

12. Interventions Charities i.e., organisations Ways of giving i.e., how to do philanthropy “The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.” Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance • “Two mantras: • If you want to have evidence-based policy, get some evidence, and • Whatever behaviour you want to encourage, make it easy.” • Richard Thaler, co-author, Nudge; President American Economic Association

15. Interventions Charities i.e., organisations Ways of giving i.e., how to do philanthropy

22. Outline evidence system

23. 7% ! Source: Making an Impact: Impact Measurement Across Charities and Social Enterprises in the UK, NPC, October 2012

24. PHF’s designation of quality of charities’ data in their reports to PHF In reports from charities, we found “some, though relatively few, instances of outcomes being reported with little or no evidence to back this up” Good OK Poor

25. “When I first started in this, I kept talking about evaluation and he [senior person in the charity sector] said to me: ‘don’t worry about that. You can just make it up. Everybody else does. At the very least you should exaggerate a lot. You’ll have to, to get funded’” – operating organisation Source: www.giving-evidence.com/info-infrastructure

26. Estimates of impact of a reading programme in India Source: IPA Source: Innovations for Poverty Action

27. Research quality: Weak research allows for strong claims that programmes work

28. It’s unreliable.

29. It’s unreliable.It isn’t published.

30. It’s unreliable.It isn’t published.You can’t find it.It’s unclear.It’s not comparable.It duplicates.

31. Don’t PRODUCE research… but USE research

33. a central tenet of good clinical research, much taught by Professor Sir Richard Peto FRS Ask an important question and answer it reliably

34. Needs values and priorities of grantee organisation and intended beneficiaries Best available evidence about ‘what works’ Donors’ interests, values, passions and expertise How to fund: best available evidence about how to fund in those circumstances • External context: • Public priorities • Relevant activities of other donors and gov’t (where the gaps are) EBP

35. Interventions • Get some evidence: preferably which isn’t crap • Make it easy: for people to find (indexing), read (paywalls), understand (academic-ese), pre-synthesized • Kill production of crap • Better evidence of what ‘beneficiaries’ want • Charities • i.e., organisations • Get some way of doing analysis of organisations, esp. multi-intervention orgs • Kill off the admin cost myth • Some TripAdvisor thing? • Get some data – e.g., on grant hit-rate, like Shell Fdn: this seems to be really hard • Do some case controls / expts of what makes successful grants Ways of giving i.e., how to do philanthropy

36. Given all that, what would you do next? Caroline Fiennes Twitter: @carolinefiennes www.giving-evidence.com caroline.fiennes@giving-evidence.com

37. Evidence-Based Philanthropy: What would you do next? Caroline Fiennes www.giving-evidence.com caroline.fiennes@giving-evidence.com Twitter: @carolinefiennes