Good points!

If your boss would have as little trust in you as the average parent has in their child, I think it would feel terrible

On the other hand, if you lied to your boss as frequently and blatantly as most kids lie to their parents, you should expect not to keep your job for long. In other words, the trust may be lower, but the consequences/expectations are also lower.

Might be worth clarifying which risks you are asking about, unless you intentionally want to keep it open/ambiguous.

The story of Jesus being anointed by a woman with a costly jar of perfume leads us to the question of how we should divide our resources between religious gestures (“praise”, if you like) and helping the poor. Is this story still relevant in the current age, and if so how should we think about this question today?

The 2007 GiveWell marketing fiasco arguably came close to ending the project.

I was referring to this post, which I think includes services for those who are earning to give?

Did you find them? Perhaps they should be added to the periodic EA Advertisements post?

I'm not completely clear on what your requirements are, but here are some ideas:

• Have you considered giving cash rather than in-kind resources? Cash is more flexible to beneficiaries' needs.
• If you are giving food, you probably want to consult with the WFP to see what they would do / are doing in the Philippines. They have thought about this quite a bit.
• In terms of dollars per calorie, the best value is probably pulses and grains. Conveniently these are also healthy (but are not by themselves a complete diet). You will notice this is also the foundation of the WFP food basket.
• I am skeptical that the best prices will be found online, especially in the Philippines. If you are buying in bulk then you can deal directly with manufacturers/wholesalers; if not local markets may offer a better value.
• In particular, if the goal is to provide a complete balanced diet at the lowest possible cost, I doubt you will do better than groceries at the local market, even if you have to pay for food preparation.
• If you are looking for a packaged shelf-stable food that provides complete nutrition, then you might consider some kind of packaged ration. For example the US government sells surplus humanitarian rations. Here are some for sale in bulk.

I never meant to imply that environmental systems have moral value, but I think they definitely have instrumental value, and they might also have some aesthetic value.

I’m generally with you on “doing one thing well”; but I also note that there are efficiencies in combining programs, which charities seem extremely reluctant to do on their own, even when the synergies are obvious. It’s plausible to me that merger is the best way to get these economies of scale. Or else some kind of outsourced service provider that could create synergies outside of the individual charities operations, similar to how most smaller e-tailers don’t deliver their own merchandise.

When I visited some GiveDirectly beneficiaries in Kenya, I was struck by the story of a guy who had gotten some horticultural training from PLAN more than a decade previous, but had been unable to put it to use since for lack of funds (until GiveDirectly came around). Yet I doubt that either GiveDirectly or PLAN would have the slightest interest in aligning their programs to get the increased impact that in this case happened by accident. I think about this anecdote a lot.