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You may be interested to know that GiveWell didn’t start out as a GHD evaluator. The initial idea was to evaluate many different cause areas, including economic opportunity and education. But I think what happened is that once they had compiled the research, donors saw that the GHD stuff was like 10,000× more cost effective, so the other cause areas didn’t attract much money moved and in 2012 they shut the other cause areas down. 2009 was the year GiveWell discovered AMF, and other than that, their 2009 top charities list is pretty unrecognizable.
Hi James! There's actually a variety of EA-aligned charities in those areas. Some that come to mind:
They all have their own theories as to why they might be unusually effective.
As for why:
Ah, thank you! Could I ask, do you know how I could have come to have learned about these? Like, are there any websites compiling these charities or organizations with research relevant to the question in my post?
GiveWell has lots of research on evaluating programs. Check out their website and podcast, and their grant recipients.
Happier Lives Institute does a similar thing to GiveWell, but with a different moral prioritisation (and a substantially smaller budget).
Giving Green and Power for Democracies do similarly, and I think Peace Per Dollar might be starting up.
Giving What We Can has its "other supported charities" list.
Ambitious Impact has lists of EA-incubated charities (but again, this is a different thing from effective giving opportunities, as they're often targeting other funding sources).
The EA Forum itself runs a donation election every December - you can look up last year's.
Coefficient Giving's website has problem area descriptions and grant dispersals.
Thank you so much!!!
Happier lives Institute: https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/
EA also does democracy charity evaluation which you might want to look into https://www.powerfordemocracies.org/