What we want to give isn't always what people need
Picture a Sunday morning. A group of people shows up at your door, determined to help you. Their plan? Repaint your car blue, simply because they like that colour. You tell them you don't need this, and that you don't even like blue. They insist anyway, pouring in time, energy, even money, without ever addressing your objections. In the end, it doesn't help you. Worse, it might actually cause you real trouble. Absurd, right?
Donations that aren't built to help
Yet this is remarkably close to how a share of traditional humanitarian aid actually works. We often choose to support a cause, or to act, based on our own preferences, without asking whether that's genuinely what helps beneficiaries most. Except here, the consequences can be far graver than a repainted car: mothers and fathers sometimes lose their children because nobody accounted for their real needs, or looked for the most effective way to help them. The car analogy isn't as far-fetched as it sounds: some well-intentioned donations have genuinely harmed the people they were meant to help, simply because they weren't designed with those people in mind.
A good share of giving is still guided by intuition, emotion, media coverage, and personal preference, both in choosing which problems to tackle and which methods to use. That's not surprising: for most of us, our brains have mainly learned to lean on intuition and natural instinct. But as we'll see, going beyond that can help us do more good.
The point isn't to make anyone feel guilty. It's to become aware of a gap: the one between what we feel like doing and what the people we want to help actually need.
A moment of introspection: what about you?
The real question is what you do when you're presented with new information.
If you're told you could have 100 times more impact by giving to the best charities, how do you react?
If independent evaluators, who have spent thousands of hours comparing projects, identify charities running proven interventions focused on beneficiaries' real needs, are you willing to adjust your view? Those needs, by the way, aren't assessed from behind a desk alone: GiveWell, for instance, funded preference surveys of nearly 1,800 people in Kenya and Ghana to factor their actual trade-offs into its recommendations.
Relying on these international evaluators isn't about imposing an outside viewpoint: it's actually the opposite. They don't favour the method donors happen to prefer; they look for whatever best helps people reach the goals that matter to them: staying healthy, watching their children grow up, raising their incomes. To do that, they rely on demanding methods like randomised controlled trials, and sometimes even use cash transfers so people can choose for themselves. Rigorous evaluation doesn't distance us from real needs; it's the most reliable way to get closer to them.
Will you question your intuitions when solid evidence is put in front of you? And if you need more certainty, will you go looking for it yourself: opening up GiveWell's analyses, digging into their spreadsheets to understand their estimates, or contacting us before you give?
If you recognise yourself among those ready to reconsider their choices, one question follows: will your next donations go to charities with verified impact?
On the other hand, if you find yourself thinking:
"I want to help primary education, especially strengthening how maths is taught."
"I want to provide access to water by digging wells."
...then you're probably giving more weight to your current preferences. You may simply need more time to change your mind, or you might choose to dedicate part of your budget to causes you believe best meet real needs, while keeping another part for projects that are more personal to you. That's exactly the idea behind the three-basket method: set aside one basket for the people close to you, one for causes you care about, and one for maximum impact, without feeling guilty about any of the three.
At its core, what matters most is seeing this gap between what we want to do and what people actually need. We encourage you to start from beneficiaries' real needs, lean on rigorous research, and choose interventions based on their ultimate impact. That way, for the same amount of effort, we can transform far more lives.
Give where it truly makes a difference
Giving according to our own preferences or emotions isn't enough to make a real difference. We need to listen to beneficiaries' actual needs and rely on solid evidence. By supporting rigorously evaluated charities with high effectiveness, you can multiply the impact of every donation by up to 100, and durably transform lives where help is needed most.
Today, you have the power to make that choice. By giving to a charity recommended by Mieux Donner, you support work that saves lives and improves health, education, and the environment in concrete, measurable ways.
Give effectively, starting today
Direct your generosity toward charities with proven impact, selected using the best available evidence.
Make an effective donation