About

How these pages are made.

Five problems, three ways into each, and a standing promise: what the pages say is true, what they tell you to do works, and one person can actually do it. This page says how that promise is kept.

Where this started

The topics came from five essays written in 2025. The pages were then built from the sources, not the essays: the facts from the original reports and studies, the actions from the evidence about what one person can do that helps most. Where an essay’s figure has aged or turned out to be wrong, its own page says so, in a box above the text, and the essay is left as published.

The three routes

• Learn is ten minutes of what’s true: numbered facts with sources and sample sizes, the words that change the answer, and the places where good sources disagree. It leaves the disagreement in rather than averaging it away.
• Do is the whole job in three steps, priced in minutes and dollars, then the details: exact links, menu paths, scripts. It answers the skeptic, and when the honest answer is “less than you’d hope”, it says so.
• Practice is what keeps it going: a rhythm with dates, a drill you can repeat, a thirty-second version to say to a friend, ways to do it with other people, and a checklist that remembers where you are.

How the facts are checked

• Every figure on a page was read in its original source, and each page says when. Nothing is quoted from memory: a figure that could not be read is labelled, not guessed.
• Every source is graded on the page. primary is the original document. research is peer-reviewed work, preprint when it isn’t yet. evaluator is an independent assessor such as GiveWell. charity’s own figures is an organisation reporting on itself. news is press coverage. industry research is a study by a company or an industry-funded body that hasn’t been peer-reviewed. industry projection is a forecast. A figure read only through a search summary, or not re-read, is labelled unread or unverified. A thin source is allowed; being quiet about it isn’t.
• Every action is graded too, on how strong the evidence is that it works: strong, moderate, weak, none but plausible, or contradicted. The page says what the evidence is. One rubric applies to all five topics:
  • strong: at least two independent randomised trials, or a systematic review rated high certainty, find that the action, or the program it pays for, produces its outcome in settings like the page’s.
  • moderate: one well-run randomised trial, or several studies of other designs that agree, or an independent evaluator’s judgement built on trials of the program’s parts.
  • weak: only before-and-after, observational or self-reported evidence, or studies that are small or short.
  • none but plausible: no study tests it; the page names the reason to expect it to work.
  • contradicted: good studies find it doesn’t work, or that it harms the people it’s meant to help.
  Two trials by the same team, or paid for by the organisation being graded, count as one. An organisation’s study of its own program counts as its own figures. Only studies of the action itself move the grade.
• The tables behind every page are public: each claim, its source, the quote and what we found, with the evidence reviews that chose the actions, on Records. Where the sources disagree, both are shown. Where a number is our own arithmetic, it says so. A figure the sources don’t support does not appear, even if the essay used it.
• The actions are chosen by evidence, not by habit: what randomized trials, independent evaluators and the organisations’ own outcome data say helps the people the problem is about, and what well-meant versions have been shown to harm.

How the site stays current

Every figure on the site was read in full from its source on 5 or 6 November 2026. From 9 November, a weekly review is scheduled to re-read one topic at a time against five questions, and nothing it changes goes live unless it passes the site’s checks. Every change is listed on What changed.

• Is it true? Each week’s topic has every figure re-read from its source. Items that expire sooner, a deadline, a menu path, a bill’s status, carry their own date. On your device, a dated ask greys out once its date passes, with a note, until the page is re-checked.
• Is it the right thing to say and do? New editions of the key reports, new evaluations, and the standing of every organisation named: operating, filed, and clean, or the page says what was found.
• Does the page work? Links, anchors, structure, and whether the first thing you can do is near the top.
• Does the action complete? Every give, sign-up, call and report link is followed to the last step before money or submission, and the destination must still match the page.
• Does it help the people it’s for, and can it be done together? Who benefits, what the known harms of well-meant versions are, and which ways of doing it with others have evidence.

Every change to a fact or an action is dated and listed on What changed. If you find something wrong, contest it with the form at the bottom of any page: select the words first and they’re copied in. The weekly review reads every note, re-reads the source, and lists what it found on Contested.

What this site doesn’t do

• It collects no money. Every link goes straight to the organisation.
• It collects nothing you don’t type into the note form. There are no analytics, no cookies, and no tracking on any link; the browser is told not to send this site’s address when you leave.
• A note you send has no name on it and nothing about your browser or connection. The email box is optional and used only to reply. Notes are kept in the site’s private records; the review never puts your words or details on the site. The host, Vercel, keeps its own request logs, as web hosts do.
• Your ticks are stored in your own browser and never sent anywhere. Clear them from any page.
• If you enter a ZIP code, it stays in your browser. The state tables it uses are part of the page, so looking up your state sends nothing. A link that carries your ZIP, such as a food-bank finder, goes only to that organisation, when you open it.
• The calendar reminder and the contact cards are made on your device. Nothing is sent, and the reminder holds no dates or figures that could go stale.
• Nothing is sold. There is no sign-up.

Back to the five

No tracking on any link.Ticks stay on this device.What changedContested