July 16, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Achieving “sustainability” — not just paying for children’s immunizations, for example, but increasing immunization rates over time without continued donor support — is an important goal for many philanthropists, Holden Karnofsky writes on the GiveWell blog.
Yet GiveWell, a group that evaluates charities, doesn’t currently list “sustainability” as one of its key criteria.
Why not?
Mr. Karnofsky says: “While we’ve seen many charities aiming for sustainability, we’ve yet to see any that can demonstrate both future plans and past success in this area.”
Most of the international aid charities that GiveWell recommends to donors are trying to achieve sustainability, but few have reached that goal.
For example, Mr. Karnofsky says he is skeptical of plans by Partners in Health, a charity that performs well in GiveWell’s evaluations, to hand off financing duties to the Rwandan government.
Charities that GiveWell does not recommend rarely seem to be recording the long-term impact of their efforts, he says.
Furthermore, he says that sustainability is “a desirable goal, but not a reasonable requirement.” With so few organizations currently able to demonstrate sustainability, “simply having real, demonstrable impact is enough.”
What do you think?
