“Global Innovation Fund projects its impact to be 3x GiveWell Top Charities” by jh
EA Forum Podcast (All audio) · 2023-06-01
The Global Innovation Fund (GIF) is a non-profit, impact-first investment fund headquartered in London that primarily works with mission-aligned development agencies (USAID, SIDA, Global Affairs Canada, UKAID). Through grants, loans and equity investments, they back innovations with the potential for social impact at a large scale, whether these are new technologies, business models, policy practices or behavioural insights.Recently, they made a bold but little publicized projection in their 2022 Impact Report (page 18): "We project every dollar that GIF has invested to date will be three times as impactful as if that dollar had been spent on long-lasting, insecticide-treated bednets... This is three times higher than the impact per dollar of Givewell’s top-rated charities, including distribution of anti-malarial insecticide-treated bednets. By Givewell’s estimation, their top charities are 10 times as cost-effective as cash transfers."This is a short post to highlight GIF's projection to the EA community and to invite comments and reactions.Here are a few initial points:It's exciting to see an organization with relatively traditional funders comparing its impact to GiveWell's top charities (as well as cash transfers).I would want to see more information on how they did their calculations before taking a view on their projection.In any case, based on my conversations with GIF, and what I've understood about their methodology, I think their projection should be taken seriously. I can see ways it could be either an overestimate or an underestimate.Did you find this narration helpful? How could it be improved?
As an experiment, we're releasing AI narrations of all new posts with >125 karma on the "EA Forum (All audio)" podcast. Please share your thoughts and/or report bugs in the narration.Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
EA Forum Podcast (All audio)
Audio narrations from the Effective Altruism Forum, including curated posts, posts with 30 karma, and other great writing.
If you'd like fewer episodes, subscribe to the "EA Forum (Curated & Popular)" podcast instead.
- No. of episodes: 99
- Latest episode: 2023-06-04
- Business Society & Culture Philosophy Non-Profit
Where can you listen?
