Please visit GiveWell.net


This CharityScorecard.org site was in use from 2006 to 2008, but is now mostly dormant, and the material here is out of date. The GiveWell project has similar goals and is being actively maintained. I've left the old CharityScorecard.org content here just for the historical record.

Clear Fund

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The Clear Fund, Inc. (aka GiveWell)
320 7th Ave #232
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Web Site http://givewell.net/
Founded 2007
IRS Status 501(c)(3) since 2007
EIN 20-8625442
Links Give.org
Charity Navigator
Guidestar http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsReport.do?npoId=100859326
This entry up-to-date as of 2009-12-20

Contents

Scorecard

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Financial Questionnaire

The Clear Fund, Inc. (aka GiveWell)
Summary Net assets (990 line 21) 736,249 USD
Total revenue (990 line 12) 768,572 USD
Total expenses (990 line 17) 186,111 USD
Expenses Program expenses (990 line 13) 155,108 USD
Mgmt. and general expenses (990 line 14) 31,003 USD
Fundraising expenses (990 line 15) 8,126 USD
Compensation CEO or highest paid employee Holden Karnofsky
Compensation
(990 Part V column C) 		60,000 USD
Additional compensation
(990 Part V columns D and E) 		3,345 USD
Total compensation 63,345 USD
Sources: [1]
For fiscal year ended 2008-12-31
This entry up-to-date as of 2009-12-20

Growth Questionnaire

The Clear Fund, Inc. (aka GiveWell)
IRS Form 990 Year Total Expenses
(from line 17)
2007 242,081 USD
2006 0 USD
2005 0 USD
2004 0 USD
2003 0 USD
2002 0 USD
2001 0 USD
Sources:

Geography Questionnaire

The Clear Fund, Inc. (aka GiveWell)
Country Expenses Description
United States guess: 272,551 USD Money that was spent on salaries for people who
live and work in the US, and for office space,
supplies, computers, etc.
If this information is not available on the organization's web site, as an approximation we've been using numbers from Form 990: (line 44(A)) minus (line 22(A))
Abroad guess: 35,000 USD 
(from a total of 50,000 USD in 
grants to organizations working 
in Africa, such as PSI, of which 
about 30% probably got spent in 
the US and 70% spent abroad)
A breakdown, by country or region, of the money
that was spent abroad, or was spent in the US for
goods that were shipped abroad.
If this information is not available on the organization's web site, as an approximation we've been using the number from Form 990 line 22(A)
Total 307,551 USD from Form 990 line 44(A)
Sources: [2] [3]
This entry up-to-date as of 2008-04-22

Health Outcomes Questionnaire

Influence on other donors

  • GiveWell publishes material that offers assessments of the impact of work done by other organizations. It is possible that GiveWell's work may result in improved health outcomes, if the assessments that GiveWell publishes cause other donors to either (a) give more total money than they otherwise would have (to any organization with a non-negative impact), or (b) distribute their donations differently, with more money going to organizations that have greater impact.
  • The GiveWell site includes links that allow donors to make contributions to recommended charities (such as PSI) via the Network for Good service. GiveWell tracks these donations, and given those tracking numbers it might be possible to make at least a baseline conservative estimate about the total impact of GiveWell's published material. Unfortunately, I think GiveWell has yet to start publishing those donation-tracking tallies, so we can't yet make any estimate based on that.

Direct grants

  • About half of GiveWell's 307,551 USD budget is spent on salaries and other direct expenses, but 140,000 USD is allocated to grants. That grant money is split between the five causes that GiveWell is initially researching. Most of the grant money is going to organizations that are working in New York City, but 50,000 USD is allocated to organizations working in Africa. In January 2008, GiveWell gave $25,000 to PSI. Source: Clear Fund Budget as of 2008-03-01
  • The New York grants probably result in only very modest impacts on health outcomes, but the grants to organizations in Africa have significant impact on health outcomes.
  • PSI publishes its own Annual Health Impact Report, which estimates the total impact of PSI's work in terms of DALYs.
  • Using the figures above, that means:
    • 28 USD per DALY for the money spent by PSI in 2005
    • 27 USD per DALY for the money spent by PSI in 2006
  • If GiveWell gave 25,000 USD to PSI out of a total GiveWell budget of 307,551 USD, that means that 8% of GiveWell's budget went PSI in the past year.
  • Using the figures above, that implies a result of about 332 USD per DALY for any money given to GiveWell in the past year.

Transparency Questionnaire

The Clear Fund, Inc. (aka GiveWell)
Basic website content Does the website include: Yes/No (source)
1 the name and address of the organization? yes [4]
2 phone numbers and email addresses for the organization? yes [5]
3 background about the mission and goals of the organization? yes [6] [7] [8]
4 descriptions of the organization's projects? yes [9] [10]
People Does the website include:
5 a list of the people serving on the Board of Directors?
(on the website itself, rather than in a form 990) 		yes [11]
6 a list of the officers of the organization?
(on the website itself, rather than in a form 990) 		yes [12]
7 a list of all of the employees?
(extra credit if the site also lists volunteers, like this Apache Foundation list does) 		yes [13]
8 a list of consultants and contractors?
(on the website itself, rather than in a form 990) 		no
9 photos and short bios of the people who do work for the organization?
(like these pages for the Adelante Foundation board and staff, or this Open Source Applications Foundation staff page) 		bios, but no photos [14]
Accounting Does the website include:
10 copies of organization's IRS Form 990, if the organization is based in the US?
(extra credit if the form is a .pdf file with selectable text that you can copy-and-paste, like the Amnesty Internationl form, rather than just a scanned copy, like this one, and extra credit for including copies from several previous years, like the Adelante Foundation does, rather than just a single year) 		yes [15] [16]
11 annual financial summaries?
(simple one page summaries, as are typically found in pdf-file annual reports, like this one) 		yes [17] [18]
12 annual reports of the assets and investments held by the organization, listing individual securities held?
(for example, to enable volunteers to look for problem investments like these Gates Foundation investments) 		no
13 detailed financial transaction logs, showing the dates and amounts for individual payments made by the organization?
(for example, the MetaBrainz Foundation posts monthly transaction logs, showing minutiae like monthly rent payments and a payment of $18.63 to the USPS on 1/9/2006) 		yes [19]
14 Does the website offer links to the websites of any other organizations that receive grants from this organization, and links to the websites of any organizations that provide services that this organization pays for? yes [20] [21]
Meeting notes Does the website include:
15 copies of meeting agendas and meeting minutes for all meetings of the Board of Directors?
(for example, like these Apache Foundation meeting notes or these Transparency International meeting summaries) 		yes [22]
16 copies of meeting agendas and meeting minutes for all of the "all hands" or general staff meetings?
(for example, the Open Source Applications Foundation posts notes from most of their weekly staff meetings) 		no
17 copies of meeting agendas and meeting minutes for department-level staff meetings?
(for example, the Dojo Foundation often posts agendas and transcripts from meetings, like these and these) 		no
Public collaboration
18 Can the general public subscribe to any mailing lists about the organization's work, and post messages to those mailing lists?
(for example, the Mozilla Foundation provides dozens of different mailing lists) 		yes [23]
19 Can the general public add content to the site, post messages, and attach comments to the material published by the organization itself?
(for example, the entire Wikimedia Foundation web site is a wiki, which outsiders to contribute to or discuss the content on any page) 		no
20 Does the website allow outside volunteers to do real work for the organization, beyond just fundraising and activism (letter writing, etc.), by signing up for tasks listed on the site and then doing the work and possibly delivering a finished work product to the site?
(for example, the Mozilla Foundation offers lots of different ways for volunteers to get involved) 		yes [24]
21 Can the general public stay abreast of changes to the website by subscribing to an RSS feed of all changes?
(for example, the OSAF wiki provides an RSS feed for all changes to the site, and RSS feeds for changes to any single page) 		no, just a conventional blog
Work product
22 Does the website include copies of all the finished reports and publications written by staff members? yes [25] [26]
23 Does the website include copies of the unfinished day-to-day documents developed by the organization (working notes, drafts, spreadsheets, to-do lists, brochures, software, patents, etc.)?
(for example, the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) website includes a great deal of their day-to-day work products) 		no
24 If the website does include day-to-day work, are most of the documents available in open-standard file formats that almost anybody with a computer can read, rather than proprietary formats? For example, is the content available in formats like .html and .txt, rather than formats like Word .doc and Excel .xls?
(like, for example, the OSAF wiki content) 		no
25 Are most of the documents on the website available under some sort of "open content" license (such as a Creative Commons license) that allows the public to re-use the work?
(like, for example, the OSAF work products) 		yes [27]
26 Does the website offer a fossil record of historical documents?
Is it the case that if a document was ever posted to the website, then it will still be publicly available somewhere in the website's "graveyard" or "attic" space, and still available at its original URL? For living documents or web pages that change over time, is it always possible to see all the earlier versions of the documents? 		no
Governance Does the website include:
27 a copy of the organization's bylaws or articles of incorporation?
(like the Wikimedia Foundation bylaws, the Google Foundation Articles of Incorporation, or the Transparency International Charter) 		yes [28]
28 a copy of the organization's policy on equal opportunity employment?
(the policy itself, not just a blurb on the site stating that the the organization is an equal opportunity employer -- for example, like Stanford University's employment policies) 		yes [29]
29 copies of any of the other official written policies of the organization?
(for example, like Transparency International's posted policies on board conduct, conflict of interest, accreditation, donations, etc.) 		yes [30]
30 a privacy policy that details what types of information the organization will strive to keep from publicly disclosing (for example, employee health records or employee performance evaluations)?
(note: this question is not asking for a web site privacy policy, but rather for a policy that guides the organization as a whole) 		no
31 a transparency policy that details what types of information the organization will strive to always publicly disclose (for example, meeting minutes from board meetings)? no
32 copies of the major legal agreements entered into by the organization (including leases, service agreements, etc.)? no
This entry up-to-date as of 2008-04-22

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