The individuals and organizations listed below are outstanding examples of what we feel a charity scientist is.

Organizations

GiveWell

GiveWell was founded by Elie Hassenfeld and Holden Karnofsky, two hedge fund managers who wanted to donate to an evidence-based charity, but couldn't find any. They saw the need and started GiveWell, the most rigorous charity evaluator around today. GiveWell is now the largest charity evaluator in the world, and with good reason.(1) 

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

IPA specializes in running randomized controlled trials on charities. Their founder wrote More Than Good Intentions, a must read for all charity scientists. They also founded Evidence Action, a charity that takes the most evidence-based activities and moves them to a larger scale. They run the Deworm the World initiative, which we at Charity Science support.

AidGrade

Meta-analyses are studies of studies. They are a rigorous way of looking at all of the studies on a certain topic. AidGrade does meta-analyses on charity science and lets you know what the results are. If, for example, you only want randomized controlled trials, or only care about school attendance, AidGrade will only show you the results of studies with these qualifications.

Evidence Action

Evidence Action was founded by Innovations for Poverty Action. They move evidence-based, cost effective interventions to a larger scale. They run Deworm the World which is recommended by three independent charity evaluators and is one of the best charities for increasing school attendance.

GapMinder

GapMinder's mission is to "fight devastating ignorance with fact-based worldviews everyone can understand" and to help achieve the Millenium Development Goals. They have beautiful graphs that will have any true charity scientist geeking out. Check them out! They also have a hilarious TED talk.

Aid Data

Even more cool stats! Aid Data's a charity geek's dream; it has open data about global poverty. Check out all of their cool graphs and stats. (Disclaimer: We take no responsibility for time wasted on their website.)

Copenhagen Consensus  

The Copenhagen Consensus Center works with the world's top economists to prioritize global development goals. Through research, they show policymakers how to do the most good for the most people. They provide careful cost-benefit analyses for today's most pressing issues. 

Individuals 

Dean Karlan

Dean Karlan is a Professor of Economics at Yale University, an Affiliate of The Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and the President and Founder of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). He is also the author of More Than Good Intentions, a very readable overview of the current state of charity science. 

   
Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld

Holden and Elie worked for hedge funds before they co-founded GiveWell, the world's largest and most rigorous charity evaluator, in mid-2007. They are well known for their rigor, skepticism, and dedication to empiricism. If you want to see the nitty gritty details of their studies, visit GiveWell's website.

Nick Cooney

Nick Cooney is the founder of The Humane League, an animal rights organization that runs great studies on its impact. He is the author of Change of Heart, which describes the scientific evidence on how to spread social change. He also gave this interesting talk on how to revolutionize animal rights advocacy.

Esther Duflo

Esther Duflo is Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT and a founder and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research network specializing in randomized evaluations of social programs. She also gave this excellent TED talk.

Bill and Melinda Gates

A little-known couple who have donated billions of dollars to charity. Their foundation is famous for its data-driven approach to giving. 

Also, here's a short funny video with them about popular aid myths.

Bill Nye

Bill Nye, the inspiration of so many young scientists, also cares about the science of charity! Check out his short video on the big myths about aid.