EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)9 Loka

“GiveWell fundraising up 49% in 2025, driven overwhelmingly by 39 donors giving $1M+” by Rasool

Previously: GiveWell raised less than its 10th percentile forecast in 2023 · GiveWell fundraising up 17% in 2024

GiveWell has published its 2025 metrics, together with a metrics report and a public spreadsheet. As in previous years, I focus on how much was raised and who gave it. This year I also look at how concentrated GiveWell's donor base is.

Truth be told I kinda phoned it in on this one, the full Claude version with better charts is here

Summary

Returning donors gave 443.6 million dollars (up 77%). New donors gave 37.1 million dollars (up 112%), which is still below their 2020 to 2022 levels.
39 donors giving 1 million dollars or more contributed 359.7 million dollars. That is 75% of identified donations through GiveWell and 90% of the year's increase. Every smaller size band also grew, by 13–27%.
The donor base is far more concentrated than an 80/20 rule. The top 20% of donors gave about 97% of the money, and about 0.26% of donors (roughly 90) gave 80%. Asking the question again within the top group (the top 20% of the top 20%, and so on) gives 94%, 93% and 92%, rather than 80% each [...]

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Outline:

(00:47) Summary

(01:53) Returning donors drove the increase

(03:20) The increase was driven overwhelmingly by $1M+ donations

(05:22) Is GiveWell's funding 80/20? No: it is far more concentrated

(07:01) Pareto within Pareto

(09:23) Methodology and caveats

(11:33) Sources

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First published:
October 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Xv7bHTipWDhRGrnHy/givewell-fundraising-up-49-in-2025-driven-overwhelmingly-by

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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