Evidence Based Giving / Charities and Ethical Investing

[The Doc]

Hi Folks

 

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with Evidence based Giving or Effective altruism / Ethical Investing ? I am reviewing the charities I am involved with and wanted to see what I'm getting for my money.  I came across charity watchdog sites and several academic evidence based setups that claim they can help my money go much further in terms of better outcomes for the particular cause

for example on one site they claim : " Michael Kremer and Rachel Glennerster, whose randomized controlled trials in Africa found that neither textbooks, flip charts, nor smaller class sizes raised the test scores of students in Kenya. Kremer did find, however, that every $100 spent treating intestinal worms in children dramatically raised their school attendance "  , I am not sure which sites to use, how to pick the charities ? Consumer reports did recommend a few of the charity watch dog sites though .

 

The other thing was Ethical investing ! Can I have my low cost index fund be more reflective of what companies or ideas I can support and if so how can I find these Funds ?

 

Thanks

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

Vanguard has a social index fund, but they only seem to offer investor class shares at an expense ration of 0.22%.

From the prospectus: "This low-cost fund seeks to track a benchmark of large- and mid-capitalization stocks that have been screened for certain social, human rights, and environmental criteria. In addition to stock market volatility, one of the fund’s other key risks is that this socially conscious approach may produce returns that diverge from those of the broad market."

Kiplinger has a list here.

I've only read a little bit about effective altruism, but that's something I'll be looking into more when I've built up our donor advised funds further and have more time on my hands.

 

 

[Hatton]

I assume you know about Charity Navigator.

[The Doc]

I came across charity navigator yes, Thanks POF and hatton1 for your responses

[amphora]

I'm not a fan of the effective altruism movement, which seems to be too narrow in its view of philanthropy. GiveWell highlights some great charities though there are many other fantastic charities that don't meet their utilitarian criteria.

Likewise ethical investing is complicated by your personal views on ethics. Most socially conscious funds avoid weapons, gambling and coal companies. But what about alcoholic beverage or oil companies? Each fund has different parameters and goals.

[The Doc]

are you using the ones givewell recommend amphora  ? there is a peice done on this on consumer reports website with best and worst also ..  quite shocking how much some companies are spending on their own salaries, some charities were spending 2/3 of everything on revenue generation alone !

[Craigy]

IMO there are enough deserving, well-run local charities for me to contribute to before I go sending money to other continents.  When it's local you can literally watch each dollar get spent if it's important to you.