What does SoGive mean by Gold, Silver and Bronze?

UPDATE: This post has been superseded by a more recent post.

 
SoGive assigns ratings to charities or other organisations that accept donations from donors.

Our ratings are intended to guide donors to help them determine which are the best choices if the donor wants to achieve the most good with their donations.

The criteria are primarily

• Impact-oriented cost-effectiveness, as set out in this post on the SoGive two-question method
• Strength of evidence of impact, for the reasons set out in this post

What do we mean by Gold, Silver, and Bronze?

• When we describe an organisation as Gold-rated, we mean that the organisation's work likely outperforms that of a Silver-rated organisation, and likely outperforms a Bronze-rated organisation by a substantial margin, as assessed considering cost-effectiveness and evidence of effectiveness. A gold charity is an outperformer.
• When we describe an organisation as Silver-rated, we mean that the organisation's work likely outperforms that of a Bronze-rated organisation, typically by a substantial margin, but underperforms compared to a Gold-rated organisation. A silver charity is an outperformer.
• When we describe an organisation as Bronze-rated, we mean that that the organisation's work likely has a positive impact, but underperforms compared to a Silver or Gold-rated charity. A Bronze-rated organisation may underperform a silver charity by a substantial margin. By assigning a charity or organisation a Bronze rating, we are not guaranteeing that the organisation does have net positive impact, however we are expressing confidence that the charity's impact underperforms our Gold Standard Benchmarks

Ratings may be tentative or firm.

• A tentative rating indicates a fairly high probability that we could change our rating in light of new information.
• A firm rating indicates a fairly high level of confidence in the relative rankings. However we do not rule out the possibility that new information could change our ratings.

We are often able to assign a rating based on public information only. Where this isn't possible, we will assign a rating of "More information needed",  and indicate what further information we would need in order to form an opinion.


Further notes

• We also have a rating of "Do not donate". We use this rating sparingly. For example, charities which have received regulatory sanctions for extreme misconduct may receive this rating. It may also be used when the charity has a substantial amount of funds that it is not using.
• A Bronze rating is not a demanding standard. In particular, by assigning a Bronze rating, we are not indicating that the benefits of the charity's work definitely outweigh any side-effects or unintended negative consequences of their work.
• A Silver rating is a demanding standard, and only a small proportion of rated charities achieve this rating.
• For readers familiar with the work of GiveWell, we consider SoGive Gold status to be roughly equivalent to GiveWell-recommended status.