Last year a bunch of people made blog posts outlining where they were planning to donate that year and why. This year, we have a better medium: the EA forum!
If anyone else is interested in discussing their giving plans and reasons--either completed or in-progress--post them below. I'd love to hear people's thoughts!
EDIT: as Jess Riedel points out, don't let this replace posting on your blog, where more/different people will see it!
The research director would not actually be directing research into which charity was best?
They would be making these decisions but would mostly be relying on primary data collected by others. GiveWell is producing so much information these days that this seems a better way to contribute.
This could be different if we hired someone who was better suited to doing charity evaluations from scratch themselves.