Evaluation Hub
The research and evaluation data that forms the evidence behind our charity recommendations.
When you donate through The Life You Can Save, you deserve to know exactly why we recommend these charities. Our Evaluation Hub gives you direct access to the same rigorous analysis our research team uses to identify the most effective ways to fight extreme poverty.
Here you’ll find detailed evaluation documents for each recommended nonprofit, our assessment criteria across seven key areas (from cost-effectiveness to organizational quality), and insights from our latest three-year review showing how proven interventions continue to save and transform lives.
Trends across our Recommended Nonprofits
The latest review of our recommended charities highlights a clear and hopeful truth: progress against extreme poverty is possible, measurable, and within reach.
Our recommended organizations’ proven interventions continue to save and transform lives. Yet major funding gaps remain, and this is where donors can make an extraordinary difference.
Every donation has the power to close those gaps and change lives.
Below you’ll find the top insights from our 2025 review of the 22 nonprofits we currently recommend.
Our recommended charities address some of the world’s most urgent challenges. These include preventable diseases, malnutrition, gender-based violence, barriers to education, and low agricultural productivity.
The good news: these challenges are highly solvable with proven, cost-effective solutions.
Interventions such as insecticide-treated nets, mass drug administration, micronutrient fortification, cash transfers, and gender-norm programs consistently deliver powerful results and lasting improvements in health, education, and income.
A clear finding from this year’s review is the persistent underfunding of many high-impact areas.
- Malaria control faces a $3.7 billion annual funding gap.
- Eye health programs receive less than 1% of the funding needed.
- School feeding programs in Kenya reach only a fraction of eligible children.
These funding gaps mean every new dollar directed to these areas creates real additional impact, rather than replacing existing resources.
The interventions supported by our recommended charities are backed by rigorous evidence, including randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and monitoring data.
- Health programs such as bed-net distribution, vitamin A supplementation, and deworming deliver some of the lowest costs per life saved in global health.
- Education initiatives like Teaching at the Right Level generate exceptional returns in learning per dollar spent.
- Poverty-alleviation programs such as direct cash transfers and graduation models show lasting income gains well beyond the project period.
Many organizations now reach millions through efficient delivery models and partnerships with governments that make impact more sustainable.
Every intervention in our portfolio improves more than one aspect of people’s lives.
- Health programs boost school attendance and productivity.
- Education programs open the door to better jobs and higher incomes.
- Gender-focused programs strengthen entire communities.
Most organizations also partner closely with local and national governments, integrating their work into public systems and engaging communities in shaping solutions.
Our recommended charities share a strong capacity to operate at scale, supported by stable leadership and clear strategic focus.
Funding needs remain moderate to high across the portfolio, with most organizations ready to absorb new resources and scale their impact.
The main risks they face are external, including political shifts, fragile infrastructure, and changing donor priorities.
About our three year in-depth review
Every three years our research team updates their reviews of all recommended organizations. We analyze the latest evidence, their capacity to scale, and how they strengthen local systems.
You can read our research team’s full summary of this year’s review here.
Evaluation Guidance Documents
This document outlines how The Life You Can Save incorporates geography into its evaluation process across three areas: selecting priority geographies, selecting the problems we focus on, and selecting organizations to support. Our approach is anchored in the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which we use both to define poverty and to identify where it is most severe and widespread.
This document outlines The Life You Can Save‘s methodological framework for assessing scale across three distinct levels: the problem, the intervention, and the organization. First, we assess the problem’s magnitude, prioritizing issues that significantly impact large populations within our priority geographies. Second, we evaluate the intervention’s scalability, analyzing its implementation complexity, cost-effectiveness, and potential for replication across diverse contexts. Finally, we examine the organization’s capacity to deliver solutions effectively, placing significant emphasis on a demonstrated track record of reliably serving large populations.
This document outlines The Life You Can Save‘s approach to assessing neglectedness, defined as the degree to which a problem is under-addressed relative to its scale, severity, and potential for improvement. We recognize this assessment is inherently complex, relying on both quantitative indicators (e.g., funding levels) and qualitative judgment, often through back-of-the-envelope calculations (BOTEC). This analysis is considered alongside a problem’s scale and solvability. This strategic focus ensures that The Life You Can Save prioritizes the allocation of resources toward problems receiving insufficient attention.
This document details The Life You Can Save‘s methodology for assessing the quality of evidence supporting the interventions of its recommended charities. The approach aims to enhance the rigor and transparency of our assessments. This systematic assessment is critical for ensuring that philanthropic resources are directed toward demonstrably effective interventions. Since 2025, The Life You Can Save employs an adapted version of the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) framework. Recognizing that GRADE is traditionally utilized for health interventions, our adaptation modifies it for the broader contexts The Life You Can Save supports, including education and living standards. The quality score is determined by five core criteria: study design, risk of bias, imprecision, inconsistency, and indirectness.
This document outlines The Life You Can Save’s methodology for assessing the cost-effectiveness of prospective Recommended Nonprofits (RNPs). Our assessment relies on standardized, sector-specific outcome metrics. Namely, Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) for health, Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS) for education, and Return on Investment (ROI) for living standards. Using these harmonized metrics enables us to compare interventions within each sector on a consistent basis.
This document provides an overview of how The Life You Can Save assesses the organizational quality of prospective Recommended Nonprofits. Our approach draws on established literature and focuses on five core criteria about the organization: understanding of the problem, organizational identity, solution design and adaptability, team and leadership strength, and commitment to learning and improvement. A high-quality organization demonstrates clear alignment between mission and practice, context-appropriate and effective solutions, strong leadership, and a culture of continuous improvement.
This document details the criteria for assessing the funding need of a prospective Recommended Nonprofit (RNP), an element considered within the overall evaluation framework. This assessment is based on five key elements: the RNP’s level of unrestricted funding, its reliance on The Life You Can Save funding, overall reliance on philanthropic funding and diverse funding sources, the funding urgency of its current operations, and its proven capacity to absorb additional funding effectively.
The Life You Can Save undertakes an annual financial review of the organizations it recommends. The purpose of the financial health review is to ensure that the nonprofit organization is both legitimate and financially sound before any further engagement or investment.
Recommended Nonprofit Evaluation Documents
Below you’ll find the top insights from our latest reviews of our recommended nonprofits including the Main Evaluation Document, Quality Of Evidence Form, Organizational Quality Form, and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Spreadsheet.
The documents available for download through our Evaluation Hub are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
