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EA Forum: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7QM4krYmoPtvyH9Pd/interactive-replication-of-givewell-s-cost-effectiveness Tool: https://maxghenis.com/givewell-cea Blog: https://maxghenis.com/blog/givewell-cea/

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GiveWell’s CEA spreadsheet has guided my giving since 2017. I finally built an interactive version covering all 6 top charities — edit any parameter and see how rankings change across 51 country combinations.

maxghenis.com/givewell-cea

Bluesky

GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness spreadsheet has guided my giving since 2017. When I first dug into it, I was amazed — every parameter sourced, every assumption explicit. That concept of open computational infrastructure eventually inspired me to build PolicyEngine.

I finally built an interactive version covering all six top charities. Edit any parameter — moral weights, costs, mortality rates — and see how rankings change.

Write-up: forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7QM4krYmoPtvyH9Pd/interactive-replication-of-givewell-s-cost-effectiveness

LinkedIn

GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness analysis has guided my giving for almost a decade. When I first dug into their spreadsheets in 2017, I was amazed by the depth — every parameter sourced, every assumption explicit, every step auditable. A public good built on radical transparency. That concept of open computational infrastructure eventually inspired me to build PolicyEngine.

I finally built an interactive version of all six GiveWell top charity models. You can:

• Edit any input (costs, mortality rates, effect sizes, adjustment factors)
• Adjust moral weights by age bracket
• Run sensitivity analysis to find crossover points between charities

I verified every charity/country result against GiveWell’s November 2025 spreadsheets — all match within floating-point precision.

Some observations from the replication: the benchmark denominators differ across GiveWell’s spreadsheets, and counterfactual coverage drives most within-charity variation — Helen Keller in Niger scores 79x the benchmark while Cote d’Ivoire scores 6x.

Tool: maxghenis.com/givewell-cea Write-up: maxghenis.com/blog/givewell-cea/