Here in the US, the holiday season is upon us, and with it comes an outpouring of generosity from Americans contributing to worthy causes. At IPA, we believe that it is critical that the more than $200 billion (pdf) donated by individuals each year is used as effectively as possible, to make the biggest difference in the fight against poverty.

That’s why we’re honored and excited that Givewell has chosen us as one of its eight “standout” organizations – out of more than 800 rated – in 2011.

Givewell conducts an extensive research process to understand the effectiveness of each of the organizations they review. They consider evidence from research and how well the organization uses that research, along with whether the organization can absorb more funding and the quality of its monitoring process. All of this combines to provide a view of how well the organization is using your money – a much clearer picture than simply measuring categories of spending.

Dean Karlan recently blogged about IPA and Givewell on the Freakonomics blog, but we wanted to mention it here too. And if you’re interested, check out the Freakonomics blog and its fascinating insights into human behavior.

We are proud of our record of finding, scaling, and supporting proven interventions to reduce poverty. If you’re donating this holiday season, we hope you’ll donate to IPA – or to our Proven Impact Fund, which supports eight proven interventions like free bednets to reduce malaria and chlorine dispensers to make water safe to drink.

In the next two weeks, we’ll be bringing you thoughts from our leadership about IPA’s work in the coming year, as well as a post from one of our researchers about new research on what motivates people to give. If you’re not already subscribed, you can subscribe to our blog by plugging our RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader.