October 17, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Too many of the reports designed to shed light on what works best in philanthropy do just the opposite, writes one observer.
“Either the conclusions a paper offers are so general and vague and offer such scant evidence and reasoning that they’re practically useless, or the paper asserts conclusions which are so obvious that no one could possibly argue with them,” Elie Hassenfeld writes on the blog GiveWell.
Mr. Hassenfeld is a program officer at the Clear Fund, a new grant-making organization in New York that plans to makes it findings public in an effort to promote greater openness among foundations.
In one example, he tells of eagerly opening Smarter Spending on AIDS: How the Big Funders Can Do Better. He says he expected a critical assessment that compared the effectiveness of different strategies in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
“Instead, I found a report full of corporate gobbledygook, which endorsed the following best practices – ‘working with the government; building local capacity; keeping funding flexible; selecting appropriate recipients; making the money move; and collecting and sharing data,’” writes Mr. Hassenfeld.
He says he questions whether advice like “selecting appropriate recipients” can or should change anyone’s approach.
“We often say we’d like to see more self-evaluation in the nonprofit sector,” writes Mr. Hassenfeld. “Papers like these are not what we’re referring to.”
What do you think? How effective are the nonprofit world’s efforts at self-examination?
