As the report I mentioned indicates, there is a movement to create these intermediaries. While I welcome an ongoing conversation about how effective any particular nonprofit is, I’m extremely worried about the CharityNavigator equivalents for rating societal outcomes. Who gets to be the “evaluator” and on what basis will they be making those decisions? What time frame are they using? What about the web of nonprofits that contribute to a particular outcome — how does this synergy get measured?

My challenge to these intermediaries is to start by trying to create the indicators for the hardest to measure causes like the arts, the humanities, all prevention related concerns, advocacy organizations, etc. As these organizations and their supporters, as well as the best minds in academia and government, have been struggling for decades to identify the right measures, I’m absolutely dumbfounded that a foundation as respected as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation would endorse by dumping tons of cash on an organization like GiveWell which, to me, demonstrated a superficial and arbitrary evaluation in their recent rankings.