Hedge-Fund Veterans Stir Up the World of Philanthropy

As hedge-fund analysts, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld made six-figure incomes deciding which companies to invest in. Now they are doing the same thing with charities, for a lot less pay.
Mr. Karnofsky and Mr. Hassenfeld, both 26, are the founders and sole employees of GiveWell, which studies charities in particular fields and ranks them on their effectiveness. GiveWell is supported by a charity they created, the Clear Fund, which makes grants to charities they recommend in their research.
Their efforts are shaking up the field of philanthropy, generating the kind of buzz more typically devoted to Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett, as charities ponder what, if anything, their rigorous approach to evaluation means for the future.
“I think in general it’s a good thing,” said Thomas Tighe, president and chief executive of Direct Relief International, an agency that GiveWell evaluated but did not recommend. Like others in the field, however, Mr. Tighe has reservations about GiveWell’s method, saying it tends to be less a true measure of a charity’s effectiveness than simply a gauge of the charity’s ability to provide data on that effectiveness.
Mr. Karnofsky and Mr. Hassenfeld met at Bridgewater Associates, an investment management company in Westport, Conn., which they joined at roughly the same time.
In the fall of 2006, they and six colleagues created what Mr. Karnofsky calls a “charity club.” Each member was assigned to research charities working in a specific field and report back on those that achieved the best results. They were stunned by the paucity of information they could collect.

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