1. Evidence-Based Philanthropy:
What would you do next?
Caroline Fiennes

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)
This is fundamentally a comparative exercise
From J-PAL (

8. Opportunity cost! From J-PAL (www.povertyactionlab.org)
This is fundamentally a comparative exercise
From J-PAL (

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

12. i.e., how to do philanthropy
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. i.e., how to do philanthropy
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. with little or no evidence to back this up”
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
The R4D work is rather like this: having to invent a scale because nothing gets on the Maryland scale.
London children & young people – same thing.
The SSIR example – endemic.
We should sort this out. Why are we spending money to produce crap?
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:

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

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

35. i.e., how to do philanthropy
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

37. Evidence-Based Philanthropy:
What would you do next?
Caroline Fiennes