How we're choosing a partner.

The first month of LADLE's design, the charity question kept coming up: "which one? GiveDirectly, a malaria charity, a medical NGO, your local food bank, a smaller nonprofit that would benefit more from the visibility?"

All valid candidates. Here's where we actually are, and the specific criteria the choice will be made on.

One framing note first: we have **not** named a partner. Every subscription earmarks $8 into a dedicated meal fund. That fund pools toward a $50,000/year commitment — the commitment we have chosen to reach before signing, so a partner is approached with a year of funding behind us rather than a promise. When we cross it, we sign with the charity we select and real partner receipts publish alongside our monthly fund reports. Full context in [the-fifty-thousand-threshold](/blog/the-fifty-thousand-threshold).

**Criterion one: the unit economics have to be legible.**

When we tell a subscriber "your $8 reserves ten meals," they should be able to verify the price independently. That requires a partner that publishes an audited per-meal cost. Until one is named, $0.80/meal is our working peg — the figure large humanitarian food programs commonly publish. If the partner we choose publishes a different number, we re-do the math publicly and re-anchor every surface on the site.

**Criterion two: scale.**

Whatever LADLE grows into — 100,000 subscribers, a million — the partner has to absorb the eventual donation flow without saturation or misallocation risk. A smaller charity would be a coordination burden at a scale we haven't earned yet. That points toward large, global food-assistance organizations rather than local ones.

**Criterion three: reporting.**

The partner has to issue machine-readable donation records to corporate partners. That's what will make LADLE's fund reports carry real reference numbers once we cross the threshold — every month, a reference anyone can cross-check with the partner directly. Today, the monthly fund report carries the LADLE-side accounting only.

**Criterion four: verifiability of their own numbers.**

Independently audited, publicly disclosed financials. Non-negotiable.

**Criterion five: no entanglements.**

No political, religious, or corporate ties that would give a subscriber pause.

**Criterion six: absorption.**

Large enough that our donation doesn't distort their operations; small enough as a share of their budget that we don't crowd out other donors.

**What about GiveDirectly and effective-altruism-recommended charities?**

GiveDirectly gives cash to people in extreme poverty; the effectiveness research is strong; we admire the model. Two hesitations: the per-unit ("a household received $X") doesn't translate as viscerally as "a meal" for consumer marketing without a long explanation, and cash-transfer platforms don't generally offer aggregated micro-earmarks with per-donation references. Still on the list.

**What about a smaller charity that would benefit more from the visibility?**

We considered this seriously. The counter: LADLE's earmarks, at scale, could exceed a small charity's total annual budget. That's a governance and capacity problem — we'd be their biggest donor, which creates strange power dynamics.

**Why we won't publish the shortlist.**

Naming organizations we haven't signed with would be a trust signal we haven't earned. When the choice is made, the reasoning publishes with the scores.

**Could the partner change later?**

Yes, with 90 days' public notice and the reasoning. The process is written up at [/help/what-if-charity-changes](/help/what-if-charity-changes). The historical fund reports wouldn't move.

For now: the meal fund holds, the reports publish monthly, and the partner is announced when it's real.