Our crisis monitor shows which crises are most severe and least funded right now. Request early access to get our first giving recommendations as soon as they are ready. Are you planning a gift now? Write to us and we will share what we know so far.

Aidwise was incubated by Ambitious Impact (AIM) and seeks funding from charitable foundations. We do not accept money from any organisation we assess or might recommend. We will list all funders on this site.

Most charity evaluators rate organisations on how they are run, such as transparency, governance and overhead costs, rather than on what they achieve. Evaluators that focus on impact, such as GiveWell, mainly cover global health. They recommend few humanitarian programmes, partly because evidence on cost-effectiveness in crises is scarce. Aidwise focuses only on humanitarian aid. We help two kinds of donors: those who want to give to a specific crisis, and those who want their money to do the most good wherever it goes. We hope to work alongside established evaluators and learn from and with them.

Humanitarian aid responds to a shock, such as a conflict or a disaster, to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity. Most humanitarian programmes address four related forms of acute vulnerability: food insecurity; loss of livelihoods, income and assets; threats to life and health, including malnutrition; and protection threats such as violence, forced displacement and denial of aid.

Humanitarian aid should be guided by four principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence. They set it apart from the work of political and military actors. (Fun fact: these principles go back to a Red Cross conference attended by 84 states in 1965 in Vienna, where Aidwise is based today.) Humanitarian programmes can respond to an acute crisis, build preparedness and resilience, or support recovery. In practice, a crisis often needs all three at once.[3]

Only partly, and we will say where we can't. We compare programmes that aim for similar results, such as treating malnutrition or providing clean water, and look at what each costs per person helped. We grade how strong the evidence is behind every estimate. Where sufficient quantitative data does not exist, we rely on other evidence to inform the best possible decision. Our methodology is open for comment. Tell us if you want to review it.

Everyone affected by crisis has a right to assistance. The humanitarian principle of impartiality says aid should go to people based on need alone. But there is never enough money to meet every need, so every choice about what to fund is also a choice about who goes without aid. Funding the most cost-effective programmes first means more people in need get help from the same budget.

Aidwise does not handle donations. Our recommendations will show you where to give, directly or through a giving platform that features them.

Yes. Anyone can nominate an organisation through our contact form. We screen every nomination and assess organisations as our research expands to more crises and types of programme. Being assessed is free and does not depend on any payment or partnership. We may ask for data on costs and results. We will share our findings with you before we publish them.

Aidwise is an initiative started in late 2026 by Elias Sagmeister, who has spent 15 years evaluating humanitarian programmes. He co-directed the international NGO Ground Truth Solutions and implemented several strategic evaluations for organisations such as UNHCR, WFP, ICRC and several national and international NGOs - independently and with the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi). He developed and implemented a range of approaches to monitor and evaluate humanitarian interventions in volatile environments, and advised grantmakers. Ambitious Impact (AIM), which incubates new charities, supported Aidwise through its Impactful Philanthropy programme.

We have not published recommendations yet, and will only do so once our evidence supports them. Here is what we are doing in 2026:

• Reviewing every cost-effectiveness study of humanitarian aid we can find, including agency reports as well as academic papers.

• Writing up our methods and publishing them for outside experts to criticise before we rely on them.

• Connecting and exchanging with experts on cost-effectiveness, evaluation, and implementers of humanitarian programmes, globally and in a small number of pilot countries.

In 2027, we plan to:

• Hire a small research team.

• Test the approach on one crisis.

• Publish our first recommendations with selected donors and later through giving platforms that donors already use.

The name represents our goal. Wisdom is the ability to use one's knowledge and experience to make good decisions. Aidwise syntheses knowledge that already exists. But in humanitarian crises, evidence is often incomplete, time is short and moral principles compete, yet decisions still have to be made. That is where we want to help: making the best choice possible with what can be known, and being honest and transparent about what we don't.