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Billions of dollars are being donated without strong evidence about which ways of giving are effective, says Caroline Fiennes.
Philanthropists are flying blind because little is known about how to donate money well. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's US$100-million giftto schools in Newark, New Jersey, reportedly achieved nothing. Some grants to academic scientists create so much administration that researchers are better offwithout them. And some funders' decisions seem to be no better than if awardees were chosen at random, with the funded work achieving no more than the rejected.
The recipients of funds are increasingly scrutinized, but the effectiveness of donors is not. Funders are rarely punished for under-performing and usually don't even know when they are: if the work that they fund helps one child but could have helped ten, that 'opportunity cost' is felt by the would-be beneficiaries, not by the funder. The same is probably true of agencies that fund research.
I founded an organization that promotes charitable giving based on sound evidence. I am acutely aware of how scant the evidence is about which ways of giving work best. The solution lies in more research on what makes for effective philanthropy. A 'science of philanthropy' could enable more to be achieved with the tens of billions given each year by foundations and other donors and funders.
Only a handful of studies have been done on donor effectiveness. The Center...