Cost-Effective Compassion: The 10 Most Popular Strategies for Helping the Poor. Economists rate impact. (Article from Christianity Today)

This article is a fantastic source of information on how to give wisely and effectively - in other words, actually make an impact. Written by an Economist and with input from another 16 economists specializing in this area, I believe you will find this a very valuable article... Christian or not.

This is mostly about numbers and sometimes doesn't take into account the heart and soul of the matter as much as it should ( but that is hard to measure ).

 However, I was not surprised to see that child sponsorship was very near the top - and if you want a long term, holistic approach , I think even the author would agree it is the single most effective way to give and impact against poverty and for individuals and even their countries.

I was also not surprised to see that Compassion International was highly regarded. (For my take on this organization read Child sponsorship why I chose Compassion International )



From Christianity Today:

Cost-Effective Compassion: The 10 Most Popular Strategies for Helping the Poor

Economists rate impact.

Bruce Wydick | posted 2/17/2012 10:12AM

Read article here

Excerpt from article: 

To answer this question, I polled top development economists who specialize in analyzing development programs. I asked them to rate, from 0 to 10, some of the most common poverty interventions to which ordinary people donate their money, in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness per donated dollar.

Today, those who want to care for the poor enjoy a plethora of attractive options. But what are the best ways to help those living in developing countries?

Sixteen researchers responded to the survey. They are from Cornell, Duke, Yale, the University of Maryland, UC-Berkeley, Stanford, George Washington, UC-Santa Cruz, the University of Minnesota, Brandeis, Michigan State, Tufts, and the World Bank. Of the respondents, five are members of the Association of Christian Economists. And they showed remarkable consensus in their ratings. Virtually none of the highly rated poverty interventions received low marks from any of the responders. Likewise, virtually none of the lowly rated programs received high marks. I did not include my own rankings in the survey, but I do comment on each. The following are the results in order of greatest estimated impact to the least, followed b organizations that use that strategy (= faith-based).