The Importance of Iterative Learning in Nonprofits

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Frida Ghitis: One thing I worry about when it comes to nonprofits is that they can iterate into sort of strange suboptimal equilibriums. She says there are going to be cases where this kind of learning process is incredibly hard because the outcomes that you're measuring might be hard to collect. Ghitis: But on the upside, when and where you're in a position to do this, that the potential to have cost effective social impact could be enormous.

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Can giving people a sense of agency and dignity be better than giving them access to food, shelter, clothing, or cash? And what exactly can be done in practice to expand human agency? How does the value of agency-oriented interventions compare to the value of more tangible interventions? How robust are the findings about all of the above in light of the replication crisis? In general, how much confidence should we place (with or without the replication crisis) in the findings of social science research? How tight should the feedback loop be for organizations that do both research for and implementation of charitable interventions?

Richard Sedlmayr works with a private foundation called the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, where he funds research and innovation to promote pro-poor economic development. He is also involved in the setup of The Agency Fund, a philanthropic partnership investing in ideas and organizations that support people in the navigation of difficult lives. Richard's background is in behavioral, development, and financial economics, and he has a PhD in Public Policy from Oxford. Richard has lived in a dozen countries and is currently based in the Bay Area. You can get in touch with him on LinkedIn.

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