
Charities we’d like to see - BenjaminTodd
http://blog.givewell.org/2015/10/15/charities-wed-like-to-see/
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pratyushag
My wife runs an early stage charity called New Incentives supported by
Givewell, hoping to become a candidate for their top charity recommendation.

They use an evidence-backed model called conditional cash transfers. They give
money to disadvantaged pregnant women when they achieve health goals that
increase the probability of their child's survival (example: activities to
reduce HIV transmission from mothers to babies).

The whole organization is a mobile-first organization using biometrics for
verification (because technology is the best way to cut across corruption) and
they work on many interesting operational challenges. The organization could
really use the help of more engineers, especially Android app developers, to
tackle some of these challenges.

If anyone is interested, please respond to this comment or ping me.

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tgb
I have a (minor) concern that we here at HN are biased towards charities that
are tech-oriented, hip app-developing to solve the world, versus a more
mundane charity. Can you (or your wife) comment on that? Why does this charity
need flashy tech? New tech comes with costs, like unreliability or
unexpectedly high costs or extra training - any concern for that? Givewell's
support is a significant confidence booster in this regards, but I think it's
an interesting subject to discuss.

Best of luck to New Incentives.

(P.S. if you want to recruit in this thread, I'd specify if it's paid or
volunteer and whether it's on-site or remote. Or anything else they have in
Who's Hiring? threads.)

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pratyushag
Great question! The key is in what way are we using tech. Our model,
conditional cash transfers (CCTs), has been used for many years by governments
in several contexts. We are not inventing anything new by any means. However,
our manner of implementation is trying to innovate by reducing some of the
biggest challenges these government programs face: corruption and
accountability.

For example, without technology we'd be facing the same issue as the Nigerian
government (the country we work in): ghost beneficiaries. By taking advantage
of currently available biometric solutions, we reduce this and increase the
likelihood that our money goes to real beneficiaries. We are wary of adopting
technology unless it is absolutely necessary. Another way we use technology is
to collect data in the field. We are working in remote, rural areas with high
levels of rainfall so we use mobile apps to collect data. This helps reduce
the amount of data compromised and also provides an additional layer of
verification: by seeing timestamps and knowing exactly who edits what and
when. This helps us maintain higher levels of accountability and identify
early warning signs of potential fraud.

~~~
tgb
Thanks for the thoughtful response!

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rdl
Not sure if it would be helpful, but I'd love to do a charity someday which
focused on providing infrastructure services (power, communications, medical
support (testing and other things to make local doctors more effective),
logistics, data, maybe utility restoration) in disaster and especially
conflict zones. Essentially what the US Military can accomplish on its own
bases, as a service for other NGOs (easier) and for local population (harder).
Being able to secure part of an airfield, run logistics and communications
which are head ends for domestic infrastructure, would be a huge improvement
in quality of life for the civilians stuck in these places.

There's a void in the NGO and commercial space between people who do good
stuff, and people who can provide security and operate in denied areas. Some
orgs like MSF can operate in semi-permissive environments, but not as well as
states can. There are a lot of downsides to state involvement in this kind of
thing -- unless you're neutral, it's really hard to get involved in a lot of
conflicts, and states are pretty horrible at providing IT services in general,
and have all kinds of incentives to scale too big/inefficiently.

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thenipper
I don't have too much to say but you're on to something. I was at the Humtech
conference in May and the Navy came in and said basically they're the only
ones who can do what they do.

It'd be nice to have a non military option for that kind of operational
support. The place where I work now can do some of that, but it's hard to
convince donors to invest in those sort of "someday we'll need this" resource.

~~~
rdl
The nice thing is this gets easier all the time with tech, in that it requires
a smaller footprint and thus physical security on the ground. I could run UAV
communication relays, satcom, etc. over Syria right now, from bases in
Kurdistan, with no personnel physically at risk, for <$10mm/yr.

~~~
thenipper
Definitely!

There is a startup non-profit called Uplift Aeronautics[1] that was talking
about doing something like that. It was going to be a UAV 'train' that dropped
supplies into Syria using randomized paths so to make it hard to shoot down.

[1] [http://uplift.aero/](http://uplift.aero/)

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vijayr
Their wiki page seems broken
[http://uplift.aero/wiki](http://uplift.aero/wiki)

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icebraining
On this topic, the recent doc "Poverty, Inc" is probably worth a watch. Giving
well is more than getting a good buck for the dollar - it's also thinking
about the second order effects of your donation.

(Note that there are _two_ films with the same name launched around the same
time. This is the one by Michael Miller, not the one by Gary Null.)

[1] [http://www.povertyinc.org/about/](http://www.povertyinc.org/about/)

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thephyber
I heard about Poverty, Inc. from the EconTalk podcast episode[1]. It seems
particularly relevant to discussion of charities on HackerNews, but may not
necessarily be relevant to any specific charity.

[1]
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/11/michael_matheso.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/11/michael_matheso.html)

