First, we wanted to make sure that we picked charities across a wide range of issues, so that our Tabbers can support the causes that they are most passionate about.
Second we wanted to make sure that our charities do an exceptional job of turning donation dollars into positive impact. For that we turned to services like charitynavigator.org and givewell.org that monitor the efficacy of different charities.
Have a charity you really want to see us add as a partner in the future? Fill out this form!
Comments
22 comments
Excellent job of picking charities! I too checked most of them out on charitynavigator.org and they're all top-notch.
I'm glad to read that you consulted GiveWell when choosing which charities to select, although I notice that you don't actually include any of their top 4, which is a real disappointment to me, as they are the charities I most care about supporting (and donate to). Three of them are also recommended by Giving What We Can (SCI, AMF and DtWI) and are some of the most effective charities out there. None of the ones that Tab for a Cause has selected so far come as highly recommended by GiveWell as these.
Also, the way that Charity Navigator assesses charities has been questioned by books on philanthropy like Doing Good Better (William MacAskill) and The Most Good You Can Do (Peter Singer). Although it is great that they look at the financials of charities, they place a lot of emphasis on how much is spent on administration costs and how much the CEOs are paid, rather than the demonstrable impact of the charities and their interventions. Why is this so relevant? I don't worry about how much the CEOs of Microsoft or Apple are paid when I look into buying a new computer, I look at how well it's going to do the job required of it. If a charity functions more successfully (meaning that it helps more people or improves the environment more or saves more animals or whatever it aims to do) by spending more on administration to provide a secure infrastructure that can cope with the donations it gets, I have no problem with that, and it surely makes it more worthy cause, not a less worthy one?
I'd like to thank you for this excellent innovation. I agree wholeheartedly with Kastrel, and would encourage you to look again at GiveWell to find truly outstanding charities.
I third the givewell suggestion, and would even prefer to have "Givewell's Top Charities" as an option and have my tabs go to Givewells current recommended allocation! These are all nice big name charities, but does not really play to the effective altruism angle you have going on.
I agree. Charity Navigator is worthless compared to givewell. Look at their methodologies, they don't compare. Please add some of their charities, especially AMF and give directly. I also recommend Partners In Health; although givewell has not been able to evaluate them directly (and therefore won't recommend them), they have some of the top medical anthropology experts in the world working for them and do incredible work. I give to all three mention charities regularly, totaling 15% of my income; i'm don't take this lightly. Please reconsider the options. I will continue to hoard my hearts until so.
I am happy with this sort of ad blocking since they are taking over my browsing experience and I don't buy from them anyway. My main concern is why there are so many of these charities that deal with other countries. I live in the USA but most of what I see fit to send my hearts to are the animals. USA needs food for the homeless and poor, clean water, better education and much more. I would rather see more help for this country I live in first.
@Jason Sparks,
The reality is that your dollar can go much, much further elsewhere. Doing the greatest good with the money should be what we're concerned about, that is if you believe all people are equally deserving of the things you listed.
Doing the greatest good with the money is not padding a CEO or going to other countries that should learn how to support themselves like us Americans did. Look back or even now how much food we sent Africa and their Government would not let them have it so it rotted.
Jason - I totally agree that foreign aid can be done dreadfully. However, now that we have charity evaluators such as GiveWell and Giving What We Can we now can choose to give our money to evidence based charities - and a small amount of money can go a really long way to improving health and education in poorer countries so those people can effectively bring themselves out of poverty. There is some amazing statistics like for every dollar donated to Malaria reduction the GDP of the area increases by $12, as the people are more able to work and get education. I'd particularly recommend looking at GiveWell.org for really detailed evaluation of effective global health and poverty charities.
I have some suggestions:
For water ability, Charity:water is one of the best. While water.org sends 87% of donations to the field, Charity:water sends 100%. Which means that more lives are saved. Also, As Andrew has said, Partners in Health would be a
Also, As Andrew has said, Partners in Health would be a great charity to reach out to.
As other people have stated, I am honestly disappointed that you haven't included any Givewell recommended charities as they can be up to 1000s of times more effective than others- especially save the children is incredibly poor, as emphasised in MacAskill's Doing Good Better as Kastrel pointed out. (Here is a reference to GiveWell's evaluation of them from their 2010 Haiti disaster relief: http://www.givewell.org/international/disaster-relief/Save-the-Children . Notice the 50% funding gap, and huge of lack of data on what exactly the money is being spent on, hence lack of evidence of effectiveness.)
I think that Tab for a Cause is a really great idea, but it could be put to much better use if you put more weight on GiveWell's recommendations and ignored Charity Evaluator completely. I seriously hope that you take this seriously.
Out of the charities you currently endorse, I will choose Educate! and/ or Action Against Hunger as they seem to have much more robust workings including randomised control trials and transparent results for the former; and for the latter, mch more transparent initiative and clear need for more funding than others listed for the latter. However, I would much prefer to have the money go to AMF.
Thanks in advance.
(sources: http://www.experienceeducate.org/impactresults/; http://www.givewell.org/international/charities/Action-Against-Hunger-ACF; http://www.givewell.org/international/disaster-relief/Save-the-Children)
Although you say "we wanted to make sure that our charities do an exceptional job of turning donation dollars into positive impact. For that we turned to services like charitynavigator.org and givewell.org that monitor the efficacy of different charities."
You clearly did not consult GiveWell.org, or TheLifeYouCanSave.org, or GivingWhatWeCan.org, because none of your charity selections are those supported by any of above highly critical charity evaluators.
Please consider offering at least 1 charity from GiveWell.org. You should know that Charity Navigator is known for not actually accurately monitoring impact -- as there is a misguided focus on overhead costs, etc. and NOT on "impact per dollar spent" or if the organizations could effectively use more donations this year, etc.
Please consider adding 1 of GiveWell's 2017 charities (such as the Against Malaria Foundation, GiveDirectly, etc.).
Thank you for your time.
P.S. clearly based on the forum above, it appears your users would be far happier with at least one GiveWell top charity option offered! Please listen to your users -- thanks!
I originally came across Tab for a Cause through the youtube channel Half as Interesting.
I want to add my voice to what everyone else has been saying.
Tab for a cause is a great idea but it seems to me the money being raised could be much more impactful if it was directed towards Givewell's top charities. At the very least their recommended charities should be an option.
Hope to see that happening in the future. In the meantime I'm afraid I won't be participating.
Callum, that is a terribly petty decision, choosing not to use a service that gives money to charity, takes zero effort and none of your time, because they aren't what you see as ideal charities. They are still charities that do mountains of good. It's just a petty decision and I hope you reconsider.
Although other people have already said so, I too would like to say I am disappointed in no GiveWell top charities making it to the list.
Has anybody contacted Alex directly about this? Obviously this seems like a big concern and I have been able to communicate with both Alex and Kevin directly and offer some suggestions, have others discussed this issue outside of this comment section? contact@tabforacause.org is their email, and I got across to them via "Submit a request". Hope they get the message because obviously it seems the donations from the 500k they have raised could have been put to better use if what Kastrel and others have said is true.
Also, specifically @Sophia, how can Charity:water send "100% of proceeds to the field"? Do they never spend a cent evaluating where would be the best place to send the money?
I posted this comment on another post because I didn't see this one, so feel free to delete it on the other post if it's irrelevant or spam.
So, do you realize that charities that make under $1mil are not rated on charity rating sites? I work for a charity that makes less than $500,000 but every single penny goes where the donor expects. We have no mailing campaigns, merch, or other overhead. I'm the only paid employee, and I'm just an office manager making $15/hour for less than a 40-hour week. My wages are paid by donations made specifically to cover office expenses, so if we don't get donations for that, I don't get paid. Our board is completely unpaid.
We can't get rated because we're "too small," but we have a much bigger impact than a lot of the bigger charities. All 501(c)(3) charities are required to publicly report their financial information with the IRS every year, so it seems like you're not willing to do adequate research on your charities. It's upsetting that you only trust these charity rating sites, which allow people to pay for higher ratings.
I am leaving Tab for a Cause because I don't feel our concerns have not been met and the system has been poorly executed. It's been 4 years of the same concerns being raised and no one has addressed them. That just doesn't stand anymore.
First, I don't have social media and that means that I don't have the opportunity to suggest the non-profits I would want to donate too. Why in the world with a system like this would you only make submissions only via one Facebook thread?
Second, impact comes in all sizes and it should be the sole discretion of the user, the one generating the revenue, where that money goes, even if it's not that much. Every user should be able to decide and donate their hearts to whatever non-profit they want. There is no reason to be limited when making this choice (so I disagree with only having Give Well's top charities).
Lastly, I personally would donate everything to the Ocean CleanUp (just like I do on Amazon Smile). I may be the only one (and I am, since they send a quarterly report), but at least I believe in the organization I am putting my money behind - Something is 100% better than nothing and every penny counts in promoting change.
Please, do better.
well, I don't have a Facebook account and I don't intend to get one, so, here is my suggestion: the Trevor project https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
it helps people from the LGBTQ+ community with suicidal thoughts, and I think you will like it
How. Do. You. Change. Them?
S. W., to be frank, I don't understand your reasoning. Like you said, something is much better than nothing. Why abandon Tab for a Cause if the charity selection isn't exactly what you want? Also, I think it's wrong to expect Tab for a Cause to allow users to choose any charity. Tab for a Cause is making the actual donations, the users just tell them how much to give to each one. Letting users pick charities would be a mess, since Tab for a Cause would have to donate to dozens, or maybe hundreds, of different charities. Some of these charities might be controversial or political.
For people who really, really care about making the most impact, Tab for a Cause obviously isn't the best way. But for the large majority of people who just want an easy, effortless way to give back, I think it's a great idea.
I understand those who think TFAC should donate to bigger charities, like the top ones on GiveWell. I do. However….a lot of those listed are already well-known and generate a LOT of money. Just because they don't get “promotion” via GW, doesn't mean they're any less deserving. In one way, I think they're more deserving because they're not as well known. I wouldn't say bigger charities don't need our help, because most of them do, obviously. But they don't need it as much as something smaller. Just because the charities listed aren't one of your BFFs doesn't mean they're any less worthy of our help. I mean, look at how much money their past recipients have received--MILLIONS. Those charities are already making a huge impact! Of course if you want to, donate your own money to those.
If you're not sure where to donate your hearts, idk what to tell you. Pick something random. Use a random number generator and donate to the corresponding cause on the list. This service costs you literally nothing. If you have decided to refuse to use TFAC because it's not set up the specific way you want it to be, I think you need to go touch some grass and take a moment for self-reflection.
Please sign in to leave a comment.