{
 "schema": "diditwork.wall-of-shame/v1",
 "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame",
 "title": "Wall of shame",
 "reviewed": "2026-10-24",
 "note": "Historical case studies written by Did it work? Every factual claim cites a source by id; figures are as published by that source and, where they are estimates, are modeled, not guaranteed. These pages do not change any charity ranking, figure or evidence label. There are no numeric ratings: verdicts are words.",
 "fairness": "Describes documented programmes and decisions from courts, regulators, official reports, peer-reviewed research and established journalism. Not a judgment of anyone's character. Organisations' responses are included.",
 "verdicts": {
  "didnt": "It didn't work",
  "mixed": "Mixed results",
  "harm": "It did harm"
 },
 "intro": "Good intentions are not results. These are cases where money, hope and often real hard work went in, and the outcome was poor, unproven or harmful. We include them because the lessons are expensive and nobody should have to pay for them twice. We criticise decisions and programmes, not anyone's character, we note where organisations responded, and where the evidence is mixed we say so.",
 "entries": [
  {
   "id": "playpumps",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#playpumps",
   "name": "PlayPumps",
   "years": "2006–2010",
   "verdict": "didnt",
   "cellar_note": "A merry-go-round that pumped water. Charming on camera; hard work at the well.",
   "what_was_promised": "Children's play would pump clean water: spin the roundabout, fill the tank, and sell billboard space on the tower to pay for upkeep. In 2006 $16.4 million in support was announced to install pumps across southern Africa, with a plan to raise more than $60 million by 2010. [frontline_playpump]",
   "what_happened": "Three years later FRONTLINE/World found pumps standing idle. Women said spinning was hard work without children around, that the old hand pumps had been easier, and that nobody had asked them; one pump had produced no water for six months, and calls to the repair line went unanswered. The rollout ended quietly. [frontline_playpump]",
   "evidence": "A UNICEF evaluation in 2007, before the big rollout ended, had already raised problems with safety, low water output, installation quality and community accountability. [unicef_playpump] [frontline_playpump]",
   "response": "The rollout was wound down. The reporter whose 2005 story had helped launch the campaign went back three years later and reported what had gone wrong, which is to journalism's credit. [frontline_playpump]",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have asked the dullest question first: does it deliver more water, at lower cost, than the hand pump it replaces? It didn't, and the users could have told anyone who asked.",
   "lesson": "Compare against the boring alternative, and ask the people who'll use it. Novelty is not an outcome.",
   "source_ids": [
    "frontline_playpump",
    "unicef_playpump"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "central-asia-institute",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#central-asia-institute",
   "name": "Three Cups of Tea and the Central Asia Institute",
   "years": "1996–2012",
   "verdict": "didnt",
   "cellar_note": "A bestselling story about building schools, and a charity whose governance didn't match it.",
   "what_was_promised": "The Central Asia Institute was founded to build schools and bring education to remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, a mission made famous by its co-founder's books. [montana_ag]",
   "what_happened": "In 2012 Montana's Attorney General concluded that the board had failed to fulfil important responsibilities in governing the charity, and that the co-founder had failed in his duties as executive director and board member. [montana_ag]",
   "evidence": "Under a settlement he agreed to repay more than $1 million to the charity, stepped down as executive director, and the board was to be rebuilt with at least seven members. [montana_ag] [npr_cai]",
   "response": "The charity accepted the settlement and its governance was restructured under the Attorney General's terms. [montana_ag]",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have looked past the story to the accounts and the board: how much went to schools, how many are operating and staffed, and who checks. A small board overseeing a famous founder is a warning light.",
   "lesson": "A great story is a reason to look harder, not a substitute for looking. Governance is part of the outcome.",
   "source_ids": [
    "montana_ag",
    "npr_cai"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "red-cross-haiti",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#red-cross-haiti",
   "name": "American Red Cross housing in Haiti",
   "years": "2010–2015",
   "verdict": "didnt",
   "cellar_note": "Nearly half a billion dollars raised; six permanent homes built. Read the definitions before the headline.",
   "what_was_promised": "After the 2010 earthquake the Red Cross raised nearly half a billion dollars, and its chief executive spoke of developing \"brand-new communities\". [propublica_haiti]",
   "what_happened": "A ProPublica and NPR investigation found the charity had built six permanent homes in all of Haiti, that a signature project meant to build hundreds of homes built none, and that a claim of providing homes to more than 130,000 people included people trained in construction and given temporary shelter or rental help. [propublica_haiti]",
   "evidence": "The reporting drew on internal memos and evaluations, and noted that other groups, facing the same land-title problems, built thousands of homes. [propublica_haiti]",
   "response": "The Red Cross said the six homes were a pilot, that land disputes and residents' wishes led it to shift to repairs, transitional shelters and rental subsidies, and that its work helped about 132,000 people. [redcross_reply] [propublica_haiti]",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have asked what \"helped\" means, counted permanent homes separately from training and temporary shelter, and noticed that a disaster-relief charity was promising long-term construction it had little experience of.",
   "lesson": "Insist on plain definitions. When a headline number mixes very different things, the outcome you care about is usually the smallest part.",
   "source_ids": [
    "propublica_haiti",
    "redcross_reply"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "kids-company",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#kids-company",
   "name": "Kids Company",
   "years": "until 2015",
   "verdict": "mixed",
   "cellar_note": "Real need, real devotion, and a model that couldn't survive a bad month.",
   "what_was_promised": "A London charity supporting vulnerable children and young people through a demand-led service, which reported reaching 36,000 beneficiaries. [cc_kids]",
   "what_happened": "It collapsed in 2015. The Charity Commission later found a \"high risk business model\": heavy dependence on grants and donations, reliance on one key fundraiser, low reserves and demand-led spending, and it made a formal finding of mismanagement over repeated failure to pay creditors, including its own staff and the tax authority, on time. [cc_kids] [pacac_kids]",
   "evidence": "The Commission said the 36,000 figure's method \"should have been clearly articulated wherever cited\", and found records too thin to show that heavy spending on a small group of beneficiaries was justified. [cc_kids]",
   "response": "In 2021 the High Court rejected an attempt to disqualify the trustees and chief executive, and the Commission agreed there was no dishonesty, bad faith or inappropriate personal gain. We record that plainly: this was a failure of model and oversight, not of honesty. [cc_kids]",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have asked how many children were helped, measured how, and what happens if a large funder walks away. Without a method behind the number, there's nothing to taste.",
   "lesson": "Reach is not results, and reserves are not a luxury. A charity that can't survive a shock can't protect the people who depend on it.",
   "source_ids": [
    "cc_kids",
    "pacac_kids"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "newark-schools",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#newark-schools",
   "name": "The $100 million gift to Newark's schools",
   "years": "2010–2016",
   "verdict": "mixed",
   "cellar_note": "Not a disaster. A costly lesson in how long it takes to know.",
   "what_was_promised": "Mark Zuckerberg pledged $100 million to Newark's public schools to back a sweeping reform effort; with other donors, private funding reached $200 million. [nbc_newark] [cepr_newark]",
   "what_happened": "The reforms, launched in 2011 after $200 million in private donations, were wrenching for many communities, with school closures and an expansion of charter schools. Achievement growth fell at first in both English and maths. [cepr_newark]",
   "evidence": "A Harvard evaluation using student-level data found that by 2015-16 growth in English had improved significantly while maths stayed about where it had been; most of the English gain, 62 percent, came from students moving to more effective schools rather than schools improving. [cepr_newark]",
   "response": "Supporters point to the English gains; critics to the disruption. Both are in the evidence. We'd call this mixed, and we'd rather say that than pick a side.",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have asked, before the first dollar: what result, measured how, by when, compared with what? The independent answer arrived about six years in, which is an expensive way to find out.",
   "lesson": "Big, fast, top-down gifts buy disruption first and evidence later. Decide in advance how you'll know if it worked.",
   "source_ids": [
    "nbc_newark",
    "cepr_newark"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "one-laptop-per-child",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#one-laptop-per-child",
   "name": "One Laptop per Child",
   "years": "",
   "verdict": "didnt",
   "cellar_note": "A beautiful machine. The test scores didn't move.",
   "what_was_promised": "A low-cost laptop for every child would transform learning in poor countries.",
   "what_happened": "In Peru, the programme reached rural primary schools, and a large randomised evaluation in 318 schools found computers per student rose from 0.12 to 1.18 and children used them much more, at school and at home. [olpc_peru]",
   "evidence": "There was no evidence of effects on maths or language test scores after 15 months, and only inconclusive signs of better general cognitive skills. [olpc_peru]",
   "response": "To its credit, the programme was evaluated with a large randomised trial, which is why we know.",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have separated inputs from outcomes. Laptops delivered is an input. Children reading and counting better is the outcome, and it should have been tested small before it was bought big.",
   "lesson": "Delivering a thing is not the same as changing a life. Count learning, not laptops.",
   "source_ids": [
    "olpc_peru"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "toms",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#toms",
   "name": "TOMS one-for-one shoes",
   "years": "until 2019",
   "verdict": "didnt",
   "cellar_note": "A brilliant marketing idea in search of a problem to solve.",
   "what_was_promised": "Buy a pair, give a pair: every purchase would put shoes on a child who needed them.",
   "what_happened": "A study of TOMS donations in rural El Salvador found the shoes were liked and worn, but most children already owned shoes, the programme did not reduce shoelessness, and overall impact was negligible. Recipients were slightly more likely to say outsiders should provide for their families. [toms_wber]",
   "evidence": "Fair is fair: a companion study found no statistically significant damage to local shoe markets, though estimates hinted at modest substitution away from local purchases. [toms_jde]",
   "response": "In 2019 TOMS replaced one-for-one with giving a third of its annual net profits to grassroots organisations. [toms_wwd] It also let researchers study the programme, which is how we know.",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have asked whether the children lacked shoes in the first place, and whether shoes were the thing standing between them and a better life.",
   "lesson": "Start with the need, not the product. A gift that feels good to buy can still be a gift nobody needed.",
   "source_ids": [
    "toms_wber",
    "toms_jde",
    "toms_wwd"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "ftx-future-fund",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#ftx-future-fund",
   "name": "The FTX Future Fund",
   "years": "2022",
   "verdict": "didnt",
   "cellar_note": "Grants made with money that turned out not to be what it seemed.",
   "what_was_promised": "A large new philanthropic fund, paid for by the business behind the crypto exchange FTX, would make ambitious grants to promising people and projects. [ftx_resign]",
   "what_happened": "In November 2022, as FTX collapsed, the fund's team resigned, saying they had fundamental questions about the legitimacy and integrity of the business operations funding it, and that many committed grants would likely not be honoured. [ftx_resign] FTX's founder was later convicted and, in 2024, sentenced to 25 years for fraud. [doj_sbf]",
   "evidence": "The team said they were \"devastated\" that many committed grants looked unlikely to be honoured, leaving grantees who had planned around the money exposed. In our view the episode also cost the wider effective-altruism movement, which had celebrated the donor, a great deal of trust. [ftx_resign]",
   "response": "The team resigned publicly, condemned any deception by FTX's leadership and apologised to grantees. Our criticism is of a donor-concentration risk the movement under-weighted, not of the grantees.",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "Our rule is to judge outcomes, and that cuts both ways: where the money comes from is part of whether a gift can be relied on. Concentrated funding from a single, opaque source is a risk to price in.",
   "lesson": "Don't let one donor become the weather. Diversify funding, and do due diligence on where money comes from as well as where it goes.",
   "source_ids": [
    "ftx_resign",
    "doj_sbf"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "scared-straight",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#scared-straight",
   "name": "Scared Straight",
   "years": "",
   "verdict": "harm",
   "cellar_note": "Designed to deter crime. On the evidence, it does the opposite.",
   "what_was_promised": "Taking young people at risk of offending into prisons to meet inmates would frighten them away from crime.",
   "what_happened": "A Campbell systematic review of nine randomised or quasi-randomised studies in the United States, with 946 participants, found no evidence that these programmes reduce offending. [campbell_scared]",
   "evidence": "In the seven studies that reported reoffending, the programmes significantly increased the odds of offending. The reviewers concluded they cannot be recommended. [campbell_scared]",
   "response": "The review's authors advised that any agency still running such programmes should at least evaluate them rigorously. [campbell_scared]",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "Only one way: a controlled comparison. Before-and-after stories looked convincing; the trials showed harm.",
   "lesson": "Intuitive is not the same as true. Some programmes make things worse, and only a fair test will tell you which.",
   "source_ids": [
    "campbell_scared"
   ]
  },
  {
   "id": "donated-goods",
   "url": "https://diditwork.org/wall-of-shame#donated-goods",
   "name": "Dumping donated goods: clothes and food aid",
   "years": "",
   "verdict": "mixed",
   "cellar_note": "The evidence is strong for one case and contested for the other. We'll say exactly which.",
   "what_was_promised": "Shipping surplus clothes and food to poor countries would help people in need at little cost.",
   "what_happened": "A study of sub-Saharan Africa estimated that imports of used clothing explain about 40 percent of the decline in apparel production and about half of the decline in apparel employment between 1981 and 2000. [frazer]",
   "evidence": "On food aid the picture is less settled. One influential study linked US food aid to longer and more frequent civil conflict; later work argued its method can produce that result even where none exists. We treat the conflict link as unproven. [nunn_qian] [christian_barrett]",
   "response": "Neither practice has stopped. Our view: buying locally or giving cash avoids undercutting the very producers a poor economy needs.",
   "how_did_it_work_thinking_would_have_caught_it": "We'd have asked who loses when free goods arrive, and whether cash to the same people would do more.",
   "lesson": "Give what people need, not what you have spare. When in doubt, cash respects both the recipient and the local market.",
   "source_ids": [
    "frazer",
    "nunn_qian",
    "christian_barrett"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "frontline_playpump",
   "title": "Southern Africa: Troubled Water",
   "publisher": "PBS FRONTLINE/World",
   "year": "2010",
   "url": "https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/southernafrica904/video_index.html"
  },
  {
   "id": "unicef_playpump",
   "title": "An evaluation of the PlayPump water system as an appropriate technology for water, sanitation and hygiene programmes",
   "publisher": "UNICEF",
   "year": "2007",
   "url": "https://www.rural-water-supply.net/en/resources/993-"
  },
  {
   "id": "montana_ag",
   "title": "Attorney General's investigative report on Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute",
   "publisher": "Montana Department of Justice",
   "year": "2012",
   "url": "https://dojmt.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012_0405_FINAL-REPORT-FOR-DISTRIBUTION.pdf"
  },
  {
   "id": "npr_cai",
   "title": "'Three Cups of Tea' author to repay charity",
   "publisher": "NPR",
   "year": "2012",
   "url": "https://www.npr.org/2012/04/06/150107334/three-cups-of-tea-author-to-repay-charity"
  },
  {
   "id": "propublica_haiti",
   "title": "How the Red Cross raised half a billion dollars for Haiti and built six homes",
   "publisher": "ProPublica and NPR",
   "year": "2015",
   "url": "https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes"
  },
  {
   "id": "redcross_reply",
   "title": "The real story of the 6 homes in Haiti: answering your questions",
   "publisher": "American Red Cross",
   "year": "2015",
   "url": "https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/The-Real-Story-of-the-6-Homes-Answering-Questions-about-Haiti.html"
  },
  {
   "id": "cc_kids",
   "title": "Official report criticises former trustees of Kids Company",
   "publisher": "Charity Commission for England and Wales",
   "year": "2022",
   "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/news/official-report-criticises-former-trustees-of-kids-company"
  },
  {
   "id": "pacac_kids",
   "title": "The collapse of Kids Company: lessons for charity trustees, professional firms, the Charity Commission, and Whitehall",
   "publisher": "House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee",
   "year": "2016",
   "url": "https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmpubadm/433/43302.htm"
  },
  {
   "id": "nbc_newark",
   "title": "5 years later, Zuckerberg says $100M Newark school donation a success",
   "publisher": "NBC News",
   "year": "2015",
   "url": "https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/5-years-later-zuckerberg-says-100m-newark-school-donation-success-n458906"
  },
  {
   "id": "cepr_newark",
   "title": "Harvard Center releases report on impacts of Newark school reform",
   "publisher": "Harvard Center for Education Policy Research",
   "year": "2017",
   "url": "https://cepr.harvard.edu/news/harvard-center-releases-report-impacts-newark-school-reform"
  },
  {
   "id": "olpc_peru",
   "title": "Technology and Child Development: Evidence from the One Laptop per Child Program (Cristia et al.)",
   "publisher": "American Economic Journal: Applied Economics",
   "year": "2017",
   "url": "https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Fapp.20150385"
  },
  {
   "id": "toms_wber",
   "title": "Shoeing the Children: The Impact of the TOMS Shoe Donation Program in Rural El Salvador (Wydick et al.)",
   "publisher": "World Bank Economic Review",
   "year": "2018",
   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhw042"
  },
  {
   "id": "toms_jde",
   "title": "Do in-kind transfers damage local markets? The case of TOMS shoe donations in El Salvador (Wydick, Katz, Janet)",
   "publisher": "Journal of Development Effectiveness",
   "year": "2014",
   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/19439342.2014.919012"
  },
  {
   "id": "toms_wwd",
   "title": "Toms replaces 'One for One' business model with 'Grassroots Good'",
   "publisher": "WWD / Footwear News",
   "year": "2019",
   "url": "https://wwd.com/footwear-news/shoe-industry-news/toms-one-for-one-business-model-grassroots-good-1237701752/"
  },
  {
   "id": "ftx_resign",
   "title": "The FTX Future Fund team has resigned",
   "publisher": "Effective Altruism Forum (statement by the Future Fund team)",
   "year": "2022",
   "url": "https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/the-ftx-future-fund-team-has-resigned"
  },
  {
   "id": "doj_sbf",
   "title": "Samuel Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years for his orchestration of multiple fraudulent schemes",
   "publisher": "U.S. Department of Justice",
   "year": "2024",
   "url": "https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/samuel-bankman-fried-sentenced-25-years-his-orchestration-multiple-fraudulent-schemes"
  },
  {
   "id": "campbell_scared",
   "title": "'Scared Straight' and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency (Petrosino et al.)",
   "publisher": "Campbell Collaboration",
   "year": "2013",
   "url": "https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/review/juvenile-delinquency-scared-straight-etc-programmes/"
  },
  {
   "id": "frazer",
   "title": "Used-Clothing Donations and Apparel Production in Africa (Frazer)",
   "publisher": "The Economic Journal",
   "year": "2008",
   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02190.x"
  },
  {
   "id": "nunn_qian",
   "title": "US Food Aid and Civil Conflict (Nunn, Qian)",
   "publisher": "American Economic Review",
   "year": "2014",
   "url": "https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257%2Faer.104.6.1630"
  },
  {
   "id": "christian_barrett",
   "title": "Revisiting the Effect of Food Aid on Conflict: A Methodological Caution (Christian, Barrett)",
   "publisher": "World Bank Policy Research Working Paper",
   "year": "2017",
   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-8171"
  }
 ]
}