causal
GiveWell cares about counterfactual causal impact
GiveWell cares not about what its literal dollars accomplish but about the causal impact of its work on the world; if its donation merely displaces another donor's gift to the same charity, nothing has changed, so GiveWell applies a 'Fungibility Adjustment' estimating how likely its giving is to displace others' funds and what those others would have done.
causalpending
Speaker
Elie HassenfeldEvidence Quote
“We call it a Fungibility Adjustment, from the idea that money is fungible; and we try to have an estimate of the likelihood that our giving displaces money from someone else, and an estimate of what that someone else would've done with those funds.”
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:29:30 AM
My Notes
Loading notes...