“Outcomes matter, good intentions aren’t enough.”—JD on the Finish Line Podcast

Listen to the episode here!

JD was interviewed in the Finish Line podcast. The podcast focuses on the intersection of faith, generosity, and personal finance from a Christian perspective. It’s hosted by Kealan, a surgeon, and Cody, a financial advisor. 

In this episode with JD, they discuss “the principles of effective giving and the practical implications for believers who seek to harness their resources for maximum impact, emphasizing data-driven decision-making and how the ITN (Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness) framework can help individuals prioritize their charitable efforts, guiding them to tackle the most pressing issues in society effectively.”

Here are some gret quotes from the episode.

On recognising good charities

JD: Frankly, most charities in global health and poverty are not … doing rigorous evidence. And that's a big problem. … I think the biggest thing that Christians should do for global health and poverty is look to see if there's rigorous evidence in RCTs or some evaluator that judges based on RCTs like GiveWell to see if they recommend that charity. … 

[Y]ou should also look for if there's some other charity achieving the same outcome but at a lower cost. 

Finally, you should really prioritise organizations that are transparent, especially about their impact numbers. Most organizations will not show you what their outcomes were, how they recorded those outcomes, how much their costs were. We should really be praising organizations that are transparent, and fortunately, they do exist, both in the Christian and the non-Christian world. There's no reason we should settle for intransparent charities.

On funding the church globally vs locally

JD: I think we have really good reasons for thinking that a dollar goes a lot further globally. And if people gathering in Jesus name in West Bengal is just as important as them gathering in North Bethesda, then I think we should honor those faith communities equally. And I think we can, on average, promote a lot more growth in church communities globally than locally for the same dollar. So that's a bullet that we'll bite. I think that's quite controversial, but I don't think it really should be. 

It depends a lot on your sense of duty as well. So some people might think I have a duty to my local church and I have a duty to tithe the specific amount and I give out of respect to my local church. I don't think I have a duty to give tons and tons of money to my local church. I know somebody will fill in as well. And I know there's a church somewhere in the world or some mission organization somewhere in the world where if I only give them my local church and I don't give to them, then that mission might dry up.

So we don't get to avoid the trade off. We just have to acknowledge the trade off and make the best decision.

On charity evaluators

JD: [I] Recommend using evaluators. Giving is hard. Giving effectively is really hard. Most of us don't have the time for it. There are experts and professionals who spend hundreds, thousands of hours, evaluators who spend tens of thousands of hours every single year evaluating charities.

So my three go to recommended evaluators for the global health, poverty, and creation care space are GiveWell, Happier Lives Institute, and Animal Charity Evaluators. There's a lot of other charity evaluators we could talk about, from Charity Navigator to ROI ministries. These are all doing great work.

… I think what's great about GiveWell, Happier Lives Institute, and Animal Charity Evaluators is they don't just look at average cost. For what you get. If you give to a charity, they also look at much more complicated questions ….

They look at room for more funding. How much space does this charity have in the coming 3 to 5 years to scale up the projects they're currently doing? And charities that have room for more funding, they recommend. So that's an important criteria.

You can imagine a charity that had its glory days and is riding on its former reputation, but actually doesn't have room to scale. If you're only looking at average performance in the past, you might give to a charity that isn't going to replicate that in the future.

GiveWell, Happier Lives Institute and animal charity evaluators look at room for more funding and potential for scale. 

On counterfactuals in charity evaluation

JD: They also look at counterfactuals. They look at what would have happened. And this is, you know, one of those fancy econ words. Counterfactual means what would have happened otherwise. And these evaluators look at what would have happened if the charities they're recommending did not exist. Would those needs have otherwise been met?

I think that's really important. If we want our charity to make a real impact in the real world, we need to be giving in ways that create a world that's better than it otherwise would have been. To bring the Kingdom of God into this world, or otherwise it might have been broken. And a lot of charity evaluators just don't have the rigorous tools to do that.

Now, I would love to see more examples in the Christian space of something like one of these charity evaluators. I don't think it exists yet. My friend Lane Kipp is trying to build one with all access. I would love to see others gather and come together to discuss how we can be rigorous in building something like this.