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INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JULY 2, 1893.
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 30, 1889.
"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfected; but I press on, that I may apprehend that for whichalso I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12.
OBSERVE the Apostle's condition when he wrote these words. I do not think that either you or I will be found to be in a betterone. If any are, or think they are, I would suggest a question. I, for my part, would be satisfied to be just as Paul was.
He was in a position of conscious safety. He was a saved man. He knew that he was saved, for he rejoiced in Christ Jesus andhad no confidence in the flesh. He knew that he was justified by faith in Christ Jesus and he counted all his own works, whichformerly were his ground of trust, to be as dross and dung, that he might win Christ. He was a saved man and he knew it! Ido not think that he often had doubts about that point, but yet he was in a state of conscious imperfection-"Not as thoughI had already attained, either were already perfected." He had not yet reached his own ideal of what a Christian might be.He had not yet obtained from Christ all that he expected to obtain. He was not sitting down to rest and be thankful, but hewas still hurrying on, reaching after something which was yet beyond him. He could not say, "Soul, take your ease, you havemuch goods laid up for many years," but he still felt his own spiritual poverty, and he cried, "Not as though I had alreadyattained, either were already perfected."
But, Beloved, let not that thought be any kind of solace to you, for I would remind you that though consciously imperfect,Paul was zealously making progress. He says, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."I know many who say that they are imperfect and they seem to be quite satisfied to be so. That was never the case with theApostle-as long as any trace of a sinful nature or a sinful tendency remained in him, it made him cry out, "O wretched manthat I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" It was not because he was dead in sin that he cried in thatway. It would be a new thing in this world for a sinner dead in sin to cry so, but because he was already largely deliveredfrom sin and the reigning power of it had been broken! Therefore he felt the burden of any sort of contact with sin. A manwho is in the sea, taking a plunge deep down under the water, does not feel the weight of the water. But bring him out onthe shore, put a great tub of water on his head-and see what a weight that is to him! So, while a man is in sin as his element,it is no burden to him, but when he is out of it, and not under its power, then he feels the weight of it, he grows wearyunder it and would gladly be rid of every particle of it.
The Apostle, I say, was conscious of imperfection, but he was also conscious that he was making progress, that he was runningtowards a mark, that he was leaving much behind him, and was pressing toward that which was before him. He was also in a stateof anxious aspiration. He desired that he might be found in Christ, that he might attain unto the resurrection from amongthe dead, that he might, in a word, grasp that for which Christ had grasped him. I am going to talk about that double grasp,tonight-"That I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus,"
Notice that there are two forces here mentioned which are at work in every gracious man. There is Christ's power by whichHe apprehends us and then there is the new power, the new life of God-given faith, by which we, in our turn, seek to apprehendthat for which Christ has apprehended us. Christ has apprehended us for a purpose-we wish to realize that purpose even tothe fullest. That is the intent of the Apostle's words. Let us consider them in detail.
I. First, let us think of PAUL'S APPREHENSION BY CHRIST JESUS.
"Thus the eternal counsel ran, 'Almighty Grace, arrest that man!'" And almighty Grace arrested him! He fell to the earth atthe first blow. He was blinded with the second. No, not so much by a blow as by the greatness of the Light of God that shoneround about him! And there he lay prostrate, broken in heart and blind in eyes-he had to be led into the city-and one of thosepoor men whom he had determined to haul to prison had to come and pray for him, that his eyes might be opened, that he mightbe baptized, and that he might thus make his confession of faith in Christ! He well says that he was "apprehended of ChristJesus." The King sent no sheriffs officer to arrest him, but He came, Himself, and took him into Divine custody, laid himby the heels for three days in the dark-and then let him out into glorious liberty, an altogether changed man-to go forthto preach that faith which before he had sought to destroy!
You may not all be able to remember any special day when you were apprehended by Christ, but some of us do. We remember whenwe, who had been formerly carried captive by the devil at his will, found ourselves arrested by One stronger than Satan. Wemanaged, by Divine Grace, to escape from the clutches of the devil, but we could not escape from that dear pierced hand whenonce it was laid upon us! We surrendered ourselves prisoners. There was no resisting, any longer, when His mighty Grace camein to arrest us. I say that some of us remember that day. Other days, notable for great events, have been forgotten, but theday when we were apprehended of Christ Jesus is stamped upon our memory, and always must be, even throughout eternity!
"Isaw One hanging on a tree, In agonies and blood, Who fixed His languid eyes on me, As near His Cross I stood"
and I have had a twist ever since! I never got over it and never expect to. I hope that twist will get a more and more powerfulhold over me. It turned everything upside down. It changed the right into the left. It made the bitter sweet and the sweetbitter-the light darkness, and the darkness light. It was a wonderful twist and, as I say again, that twist still continues!When it has once been experienced, there is no escaping from it. We can say not only, "I was apprehended," but as the texthas it, "I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." He still binds us with the fetters of His love. We still sit at His dear feet,enthralled by His beauties. We are still under the Omnipotent fascination of His altogether lovely face. We could not departfrom Him if we would and we could not if we could! If we went away from Christ, to whom would we go? He has the Words of eternallife! His love holds and binds us faster than fetters of brass. We must forever be apprehended by Christ Jesus our Lord.
them, and the other in which their will, being made truly free, runs delightfully after Christ! But having once been apprehended,the Apostle never shook off Christ's grasp-he began to live as an apprehended man. He said to himself, "I cannot follow theworld, for Christ has apprehended me. I cannot go after false doctrine, for Christ has apprehended me and crucified me withHimself. I cannot cease to preach the Gospel. I cannot become a self-seeker. I cannot do anything but live for Him who diedfor me, for the Master has apprehended me. He has put me under parole to keep close to Him forever and I must not, cannot,dare not, would not leave Him! I am His apprehended one henceforth and even forever."
I want your hearts to talk over this first part of the sermon. Never mind my faltering tongue-let your own hearts speak. IfChrist has never apprehended you, well then, you have nothing to do with this matter, and you may leave it alone. But if Hehas arrested you, acknowledge the soft impeachment, tonight. Say in your heart, "Yes, He has, indeed, laid hold on me, andmy heart's desire is that He would bring every thought into captivity to Him. From henceforth I would be led in triumph byHim, His captive all the days of my life, to show the power of His illustrious love, the victories of His Grace!" Oh, thatwe might, each one, say with Paul, "I am apprehended of Christ Jesus"!
Ah, dear Souls, you who have never been apprehended of Him, I hope that you will be, tonight! I pray God that you may runaway from your old master, the devil, and not give him even five minutes' notice, but just start off directly! And while youare a runaway slave, may my Divine Master come and lay His hand upon you and say, "You are Mine. You never did really belongto your old master and even though you promised and swore that you would be his, thus says the Lord, 'Your Covenant with deathshall be disannulled, and your agreement with Hell shall not stand.' I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name,you are Mine, and now I only take what I bought on the tree. I take by power, by might, by main force, by Grace, what I purchasedwith the blood of My hands and feet and heart. I will have you, for you are Mine." Lord, will You thus arrest some sinner,tonight, to the praise of the glory of Your Grace?
II. Now let us notice PAUL'S DESIRE TO APPREHEND THAT FOR WHICH THE LORD HAD APPREHENDED HIM.
Well, why did Christ apprehend Paul? First, it was to convert him completely-to make a new man of him, to turn him from allhis old ways and pursuits-and put him on quite a different road. Now, Brothers and Sisters, that is why the Lord apprehendedus-to make us new creatures in Christ Jesus! Let us pray God to carry out that design to the fullest, to make us altogethernew creatures. Do not let us be satisfied while there are any remains of the old nature-let us cry to the Lord to drive theCanaanites out-and though they have chariots of iron, let us, by Divine Grace, drive them all out! Pray, "Lord Jesus, Youhave come to turn me from every sin-turn me and I shall be turned! You have provided medicine for every disease-Lord, healme and I shall be healed!"
Do not be satisfied, any of you, with half a conversion! I am afraid that there are a great many who have not much more thanhalf a conversion. I know a man-I hope he is converted, but I wish that the Lord would convert his temper. He prays very nicely,but you should see him when he is red in the face with anger at his wife! I know a man-I hope he is a Christian, it is notfor me to judge-but I wish that the Lord would convert his pocket. It needs a button taken off, for it is very difficult toget it open! It is very easy to put something in, but hard to get anything out for any good purpose. I know a great many professingChristians who do not seem to have had what we might call a thorough conversion. We need the power which has arrested us todo its work completely-till there is not any part of us but what has been renewed by Grace and sanctified to the service andGlory of God. Brethren, seek to apprehend that for which Christ has apprehended you, namely, a thorough conversion, a turningof yourself from every evil way!
all the blotches and blemishes, and paint the true portrait till. at last. everybody who sees us will say, "There is Christin that man-he is a likeness of Christ"!
We may not all be paintings on ivory. We may not all be taken on a sheet of silver, but the Lord's portrait, even though itis on a piece of clay, has still great beauties in it. And as He intends to make us like Christ, O Beloved, let us aspireto this! Come, get it into your voice and get it into your heart! You are to be like Christ and as you are to be so, and thisis the very reason why Christ has arrested you, pine after it, thirst after it, labor after it! Trust God to work in you towill and to do of His own good pleasure, and while He is doing that, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling becauseit is God that works in you!
If you turn to Paul's description of his own conversion, which he gave to Agrippa, you will find that the Lord said to himthat He had appeared to him to make him a witness of that which he had seen, and of that which He would afterwards revealto him. So, in the third place, we have been apprehended of Christ that we may be witnesses for Him, first seeinga great dealand then tellingwhat we have seen, which is the other sense of the word, "witness." A witness sees or hears and then he tellsin court what he has seen or heard and so he becomes a witness to others as once he was a witness to himself. Now, the Lordhas apprehended every Christian, here, to see their Savior, to see His Grace, to see His love, to see His power, to see allthe wonders which the Holy Spirit works among men-and then to go and talk of these things to others, that they, also, hearingfrom the lips of a witness, may be led to believe by the power of the Holy Spirit!
Beloved, if the Lord Jesus Christ has apprehended you that you may be a witness, be on the lookout! Keep your eyes open! Seeall that you can see. Every Prophet of olden times was called a Seer. You cannot prophesy to others until you have been aseeryourself! Pray that you may see all that is in the Word. Cry, "Open You my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things outof Your Law." Pray that you may see the movements of God in Providence, and may see the hand of God in your own heart andyour own experience. Pray God, first, to make you a witness, an observer-and then tell out to others what you have tastedand handled and felt of the Word of life-and be a faithful witness for your Lord and Master all your days. Do not some professingChristians, who are here, tonight, feel a little uncomfortable? You have not yet seen all that you should see and have younot kept very much to yourselves what you have seen? I would that you could apprehend that for which also you are apprehendedof Christ Jesus, seeing what He means you to see and then, telling out what He means you to tell. May the Lord instruct usmore and more that we may fulfill all His good pleasure!
But, next, we were converted in order to be the instruments of the conversion of others. Paul, when he was speaking to Agrippa,expressly mentioned how the Lord said, "Delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send you, toopen their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgivenessof sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me." So, you see, there was a certain numberof souls for whom Paul was apprehended that he might be the instrument of their salvation! Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed, "Father,the hour is come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You: as You have given Him power over all flesh, that Heshould give eternal life to as many as You have given Him."
Now, that power Christ distributes among His people. There is a certain number of persons who will receive eternal life throughmy ministry. There is a certain number who will receive eternal life through another man's ministry. I wonder how many have,in this way, been appointed to you, that you might be the means of their salvation? You were not saved that you might onlygo to Heaven-you were saved that you might take others there with you! In the olden days, when a man needed pigeons, he usedto take a dove of his own and smear its wings all over with perfume, and then, when it was very sweet to smell, he threw itup into the air and it went into other dovecots, and all the pigeons went after it. And when it came back, it brought themhome to its master. That was a roguish trick, but it is a blessed method of bringing poor flying doves to Christ! When yourwings are sweet with Christ's love. When every time that you move, you perfume the air with holiness and mercy and Grace,others will flock around you and fly with you like doves to their windows!
ferocious grip and could not say a word till he had shed many a tear. These things make us very happy and my heart's desireis that I may get all that Christ means me to get, that I may apprehend all that, or them, for which He apprehended me!
I want every Christian Brother and Sister, here, to feel the same. There is somebody in the world whom you have to bring toChrist. I do not know where he is, or who he is, but you had better look out for him. Come, seek now. Say, "I would not losea single pearl, though it lies deep under the waves of the sea, if my great Lord intends me to dive for it, and bring it upinto the Light." Get to your searching after the hidden treasures and be intent, day and night, in the power of the Spirit,that you may apprehend that measure of usefulness for which you were apprehended of Christ Jesus! It will be a high honorto appear, at last, as a winner of souls! Kings might doff their diadems and forget that they ever wore them, in comparisonwith that crown which God will give to those who turn many to righteousness, for they shall shine "as the stars forever andever!" Aspire to this, my dear Friends, and lose none of those for which you have been apprehended of Christ Jesus your Lord.
In the Acts of the Apostles we read that the Lord said to Ananias about Paul, "I will show him how great things he must sufferfor My name's sake." Well, now, some of you were apprehended on purpose that you might suffer for Christ's sake. Did I seeyou wince at that word? Well, but if usefulness by labor is an honor, usefulness by suffering is a still greater honor! InHeaven, the brightest crown that any saint wears is that which is set with the rubies of martyrdom. When I have read the storiesof those holy men and women who died in Roman amphitheatres, or were burned to death over at Smithfield, yonder, I must confessthat I have envied them. To preach Christ seems so little compared with having Grace enough to suffer for His name's sake!As one reads of their intense suffering, one naturally shrinks from it and says, "I thank God that I am not called to endurethat trial." But yet, if we were called to it, we would have Grace given to us to bear it What an honor it was for them, forthe sake of the Prince of martyrs, the Leader of the sacramental hosts of God's elect, to be able and willing to give themselvesup to death!
Well, you may be called to suffer for Christ's sake, but, at any rate, you are called to this-to lay your all upon His altar,to devote yourself, your substance, all that you are and all that you have, to His honor and Glory! You are apprehended ofChrist Jesus for this purpose-try to apprehend it. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, let us resolve to live wholly unto Christ! Letus bid Him take our hands, feet, heart, eyes, brain and every faculty of our being! May God get as much glory as He can, outof us, or reflect as much of His Glory as is possible through even our weakness and infirmities! But this is why we have beenapprehended of Christ Jesus, that we may be wholly and only the Lord's, "For the love of Christ constrains us because we thusjudge, that if one died for all, then all died, and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth liveunto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again." Here is the prize of your high calling-are you ready torun for it? God help you to do so, to apprehend, in personal self-sacrifice, all that for which Christ has apprehended you!
"EEast and west, and south and north, Speeds each glorious angel forth, Gathering in with glittering wings Zion's saints toZion's King,"
in the world to come. You shall be as full as the greatest vessel, but you shall have smaller capacity. Look to that matter,now.
I believe that every action in this mortal life thrills through eternity. Time and eternity are like one tremulous mass ofjelly-if you touch one particle of it here, it trembles right through, and right throughout the ages. Not a word is spokenbut the echo of it shall be heard when time shall be no more. Not a deed is done that dies, especially the deeds of quickenedmen and women! They know not what they do-they will be astonished to find, at the Last Great Day-what they have done, forthe Lord will evidently surprise His people when He says, "I was hungry, and you gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and you gaveMe drink." They will say, "Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You? Or thirsty, and gave You drink?" And if you apprehendto the fullest the great purpose of Christ in apprehending you, that it is not of debt, but of Grace-not of works, but offaith, yet, in the ages to come, you shall be surprised to find how the little that you did shall bring you great reward!God gives His people good works and then rewards them for them! He works in us to will and to do, and then we will and doand He gives us a reward for willing and doing!
I wish, dear Friends, that in Heaven we might feel, "Well, I did as God helped me. I apprehended that for which my Masterapprehended me." You have no idea what you are going to do in Glory. I expect, one day, to preach to an assembled universeconcerning my Lord and Master, to tell to principalities and powers what Christ has done-not to sit with a lot of you goodpeople, some listening to me, and some, perhaps, not-but to have angels, and principalities, and powers to be my congregation!And I want to learn to preach well, here, that they may be attentive to me. Each one of you who has served your Lord shallbe a monument of His love and His mercy-and the angels shall stop and read what is inscribed on you! Oh, that there mightbe some good letters written on you, that when Gabriel stops to read, he may clap his hands and then fly with swifter flight,as he says, "Bless the Lord for what He did for that poor man, for what He worked in that poor woman! His Grace is conspicuousthere." As you are to be seen throughout all eternity, may you be fit to be seen! May the Lord, of His Grace, work in youthat which shall be to the praise of His Glory!
III. I have done when I just take a minute or two to show THE LESSONS WHICH PAUL IS TEACHING US BY THIS TEXT.
The first is this, make sure of your apprehension by Christ Jesus, so that you can talk like Paul about it, "That for whichI am apprehended." Pray the Lord that you may feel His hand on your shoulder, that you may feel His Grace in your heart, Hisblessed fetters on your feet, His Divine manacles upon your wrists. Pray that you may have no doubt about it, but may knowbeyond all doubt that the Lord has arrested you.
This being known, do not let it make you idle. Do not say, "Christ has arrested me; I am saved; nothing more is needed." No.Why has He arrested you? He has a purpose in it. That arrest was but the beginning of a great lifework. Let it not make youidle, but let it be your encouragement. If Christ has arrested you to be holy, He will make you holy. If Christ has arrestedyou for usefulness, be confident in seeking it. If Christ has arrested you to make you an eternal monument of His Grace, believethat you will be, and press forward to the mark for the prize of your high calling!
Finally, let this lead you to hope for the salvation of others. Go forward hopefully in your service for others. Teach thatSunday school class with a firm belief that you were apprehended on purpose that John and Tom might be converted! Go and teachthe girls and say, "I was apprehended to bring Mary, and Jane, and Louisa to Christ-and do not be at all doubtful about it."This is the purpose of God-expect it to be worked out! Go to your street corner, my beloved Brother, and preach away-evenwhen the mob disturbs you! Go from door to door with your tracts, even though they may be cast in your face. Go, city missionariesand Bible-women, to your holy and righteous toil. Go, each one of you, to the work for which God has apprehended you, foras the Lord has apprehended you, it is for a purpose! And rest not until that purpose is fully established.
May the Lord arrest some sinners, tonight! Pray, as you go down the aisles, "Lord, arrest them! Bring them to Your dear feetand save them this night, for Jesus' sake!" Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON. PHILIPPIANS 3.
The Holy Spirit indited this Epistle by the pen of His servant, Paul. May He also write it on our hearts!
Verse 1. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. When you get to, "finally." When you are very near the end of your journey,still, "rejoice in the Lord." "Finally," says Paul, as if this were the end of his Epistle, the conclusion of all his teaching-"Finally,my brethren, rejoice in the Lord." But never do it finally! Never come to an end of it! Rejoice in the Lord and yet, again,rejoice, and yet, again, rejoice-and as long as you live, rejoice in the Lord.
1. To write the same things to you, to me, indeed, is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Some hearers are like the Athenianacademicians-they want continually to hear something new. The Apostle says, "To have the same things written to you, is safe."So is it for you, dear Friends, to have the same Gospel, the same Jesus, the same Holy Spirit made known to you, is safe.New doctrine is dangerous doctrine!
2. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers. They are like dogs. If they fawn upon you, they will dirty you, if they do notbite you.
2, 3. Beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus,and have no confidence in the flesh. There were some who had confidence in circumcision, who greatly troubled Paul. The Apostlesays that they were, "the concision," the cutters off, of whom he would have the Philippians beware.
4. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has of which he might trust in the flesh,I more. If any man might have had confidence in the flesh, truly Paul might.
5, 6. Circumcised the eighth day, the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching theLaw, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the Law, blameless. So thatI do not know what more he could have had. If a Jew had tried to select a man who had something to glory in, he could nothave picked any man to stand in the front of Paul! He was truly a Jew. He had received the initiatory rite and on the rightday. He was born of Law of God to the extreme. He tithed his mint and his cummin. Nobody could have anything to glory in whichPaul had not.
7. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. So that, when we come to Christ, whatever we have totrust to, we must put away. We must write it on the other side of the ledger. We had entered it as a gain-now we must setit down as a loss-it is of no value, whatever! It is a loss if it shall tempt us to trust any less in Christ.
8. Yes doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Those are sweetwords, "my Lord." Remember how Thomas cried, in ecstasy, "My Lord and my God"? Paul, by faith putting his finger into theprints of the nails, says, "My Lord."
8, 9. For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found inHim. Oh, what a precious place to be found in, "in Him," trusting in Him, hidden away in Him, a member of His body, as itwere, losing myself in Him!
9. Not having my own righteousness, which is of the Law. He does not say, not trustingit, but not even havingit, not countingit, not thinkingit worthwhile to put down among his possessions that which he once prized so much.
9, 10. But that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him. Paulmeans, "That I may know Him more than I now do," for he knew Him and delighted in Him, but he felt as if he had not reallybegun to know Christ. He was like a child at school who has learned to read and to write, and knows so much that he beginsto want to know more.
10, 11. And the power of His Resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; ifby any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. He knew that all the dead would rise again, but he aspiredto the frstresurrection-"The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished."
12, 13. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect but I follow after, if that I may apprehend thatfor which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended. He did count himself assaved-he knew that he was Christ's-but he did not count himself as having realized all that Christ meant to do for him andby him. He did not reckon that he had reached as far as he could reach, or learned all that he could learn, or done all thathe could do.
13, 14. But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which arebefore, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You have seen a man running veryfast. How he leans forward, as though he would send his heart before him and go quicker than his legs can carry him! So didthe Apostle, "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
15, 16. Let us, therefore, as many as are mature, be thus minded: and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God shall revealeven this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.Let us keep all the good that we have received. Let us not give up the Truth of God that we have learned. Let us not leavethe way along which we have traveled so far-and let us keep together-let perfect unanimity prove that the work of Grace isgoing on in one as well as in another.
17. Brethren, be followers together of me. In these days, certain people find fault with Paul and speak of him as if he werenot Inspired, and not to be followed as Christ was, But here he expressly says what no man like Paul would ever say unlessmoved of the Holy Spirit, for he was modest and, by no means, anxious to push himself forward-"Brethren, be followers togetherof me."
17. And mark them which walk so as you have us for an example. Mark them, but do not followthem. See how they walk, but donot imitate them-"Have us for an example."
18. (For many walk, ofwhom Ihave toldyou often, andnow tellyou even weeping, that they are the enemies ofthe Cross of Christ.I lay a stress upon the article-"They are the enemies of the Cross of Christ." Professors of religion who get into the Churchand yet lead ungodly lives, are the worst enemies that the Cross of Christ has! These are the sort of men who bring tearsinto the minister's eyes! These are they who break his heart! They are the enemies of the Cross of Christ.
19. Whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things). "Whomind earthly things"-even when they profess to be minding spiritual things-pretending to be followers of Christ up to Heavenand yet really making a gain of the things of God here below.
20. For our conversation is in Heaven. Can you say that, dear Friend? Is your citizenship in Heaven? Is your conversationthere? Do you often commune with your Lord upon the Throne? Judge yourselves whether it is so or not. It is a very poor thingto have a name to be in Heaven and yet never to have any converse with Heaven! I wish that we could all say that we talk moreto God than we do to men, and have more business upward than we have here below.
20. From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is coming! He is coming! Are we looking for Him? Thisis the true position of the Christian-looking for the appearing of his Lord!
21. Who shall change our vile body. "The body of our humiliation." We have only part of the redemption while we are here.The soul is regenerated, newly-born, but the bodyis not. "The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life becauseof righteousness." The redemption of the purchased possession will be perfect at the resurrection. The resurrection will be,to the body, what regeneration is to the soul! We sometimes wonder why we are sick when Christ could make us well in a moment-butthe reason is that, as yet, He has not fully brought His Divine Power to bear upon the body.
21. That it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all thingsunto Himself May He show some part of that blessed power in us tonight! Amen.


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A full review of progress to date – both accomplishments and shortcomings – is available here.
How we fall short: Our staff is not as diverse as we would like it to be.
Steps we took to improve: we have continually strived for a diverse pipeline of candidates when hiring, and we intensified our focus on this issue in 2014. As of mid-2015, we have made significant progress but still feel we have significant room for improvement.
How we fell short: In early 2016, we began work on reviewing the evidence base for a large number of programs to determine which of them we should consider to be priority programs. Our 2016 research plan discusses this priority (referred to as "intervention prioritization"). As of the end of 2018, we have completed a significant number of these analyses but have only published approximately 10 interim intervention reports that came out of this work. A significant amount of the work that we've done to prioritize interventions and top charity investigations remains private, in internal documents that we have not shared because we have not put in the time to ensure the work is of publishable quality.
In addition, since early 2017, we have had a significant number of conversations with charities about applying for a GiveWell recommendation or have completed a preliminary evaluation of a charity's application. This work also remains private. In some cases, this is because we did not get permission to publish information from those we spoke to. In other cases, this is because we have not put in the time to write up what we have learned in a format that is of publishable quality and seek permission to publish it.
While we don't believe that publishing this work would have changed any of the recommendations we make to donors, we see this body of private materials as a substantial failure to be transparent about our work. We believe that transparency is important for explaining our process and allowing others to vet our work. The process of formally writing up our research and seeking internal and external feedback has also on occasion changed our conclusions.
Steps we took to improve: As of December 2018, this remains a problem. We believe the cause has been a failure to build and devote staff capacity to publishing as we increased capacity dedicated to conducting intervention and charity investigations. We now are planning to build a larger team, with a focus on building capacity to create reports of publishable quality. We expect this capacity will allow us to publish our backlog of material and maintain our transparency standards going forward. However, we expect that developing this capacity will take some time, and that this issue will remain until we do so.
How we fell short: From 2014 to 2016, we produced relatively few intervention reports, a crucial part of our research process. Our low production may be explained by the fact that we tasked relatively junior, inexperienced staff with these reports. We did not prioritize hiring a specialist, likely someone with a PhD in economics or the equivalent, who would have likely been able to complete many more reports during this time. This delayed our research and has potentially led us to recommend fewer top charities than we otherwise might have.
Steps we've taken to improve: In September 2016, we began recruiting for a Senior Fellow to fill this role. The role was filled in May 2017.
How we fell short: We realized in 2016 that some charities had misconceptions about our criteria, value-added, and research process. For example, some charities told us that they thought charities could only be recommended for three years; others weren't aware that we had recommended million-dollar "incentive grants" to top charities.
Steps we've taken to improve: We have assigned a staff member the duties of charity liaison. This person will be responsible for communicating with charities that are considering applying, to help them with our process and correct misconceptions.
Since 2009, we've made a practice of publishing notes from conversations with charities and other relevant parties. Our practice is to share the conversation notes we take with the other party before publication so that they can make changes to the text before publication. We only publish a version of the notes that the other party approves and will keep the entire conversation confidential if the party asks us to.
In November 2012, a staff member completed an audit of all conversations that we had published. He identified two instances where we had erroneously published the pre-publication (i.e., not-yet-approved) version of the notes. We have emailed both organizations to apologize and inform them of the information that we erroneously shared.
In October 2012, we published a blog post titled, "Evaluating people." Though the final version of the post did not discuss specific people or organizations, a draft version of the post had done so. We erroneously published the draft version which discussed individuals. We recognized our error within 5 minutes of posting and replaced the post with the correct version; the draft post was available in Google's cache for several hours and was likely available to people who received the blog via RSS if they had their RSS reader open before we corrected our error (and did not refresh their reader).
We immediately emailed all of the organizations and people that we had mentioned to apologize and included the section we had written about them. Note that none of the information we published was confidential; we merely did not intend to publish this information and it had not been fully vetted by GiveWell staff and sent to the organizations for pre-publication comment.
Steps we've taken to improve: In November 2012, we instituted a new practice for publishing conversation notes. We now internally store both private and publishable versions of conversation notes in separate folders (we hope that this practice reduces the likelihood that we upload the wrong file) and have assigned a staff member to perform a weekly audit to check whether any confidential materials have been uploaded. As of this writing (December 2012) we have performed 3 audits and found no instances of publishing private material.
We take the issue of publishing private materials very seriously because parties that share private materials with us must have confidence that we will protect their privacy. We have therefore reexamined our procedures for uploading files to our website and are planning to institute a full scale audit of files that are currently public as well as an ongoing procedure to audit our uploads.
October 2016 Update: We now have a publishing process that clearly separates publishable versions of conversation notes from private versions of notes, and we periodically audit published notes to ensure that all interviewee's suggestions have been incorporated. As of this time, our process requires that explicit approval to publish is given for each file we upload, and we periodically audit these uploads to ensure that private information has not been uploaded to our server.
How we fell short: We continue to struggle with an appropriate tone on our blog, one that neither understates nor overstates our confidence in our views (particularly when it comes to charities that we do not recommend). An example of a problematic tone is our December 2009 blog post, Celebrated Charities that we Don't Recommend. Although it is literally true that we don't recommend any of the charities listed in that post, and although we stand by the content of each individual blog post linked, the summaries make it sound as though we are confident that these charities are not doing good work; in fact, it would be more accurate to say that the information we would need to be confident isn't available, and we therefore recommend that donors give elsewhere unless they have information we don't.
We wish to be explicit that we are forming best guesses based on limited information, and always open to changing our minds, but readers often misunderstand us and believe we have formed confident (and, in particular, negative) judgments. This leads to unnecessary hostility from, and unnecessary public relations problems for, the groups we discuss.
How we fell short: Between July 2009 and November 2010, we assigned zero- to three-star ratings to all charities we examined. We did so in response to feedback from our fans and followers - in particular, arguments that people want easily digested, unambiguous “bottom line” information that can help them make a decision in a hurry and with a clean conscience. Ultimately, however, we decided that the costs of the ratings - in terms of giving people the wrong impression about where we stood on particular charities - outweighed the benefits.
Steps we have taken to improve: By December 2010 we will replace our quantitative ratings with more complex and ambiguous bottom lines that link to our full reviews.
How we fell short: As part of an effort to gain publicity, GiveWell's staff (Holden and Elie) posted comments on many blogs that did not give adequate disclosure of our identities (we used our first names, but not our full names, and we didn't note that we were associated with GiveWell); in a smaller number of cases, we posted comments and sent emails that deliberately concealed our identities. Our actions were wrong and rightly damaged GiveWell's reputation. More detail is available via the page for the board meeting that we held in response.
Given the nature of our work, it is essential that we hold ourselves to the highest standards of transparency in everything we do. Our poor judgment caused many people who had not previously encountered GiveWell to become extremely hostile to it.
Steps we have taken to improve: We issued a full public disclosure and apology, and directly notified all existing GiveWell donors of the incident. We held a Board meeting and handed out penalties that were publicly disclosed, along with the audio of the meeting. We increased the Board's degree of oversight over staff, particularly with regard to public communications.
How we fell short: For our first year of research, we grouped charities into causes ("Saving lives," "Global poverty," etc.) based on the idea that charities within one cause could be decided on by rough but consistent metrics: for example, we had planned to decide Cause 1 (saving lives in Africa) largely on the basis of estimating the “cost per life saved” for each applicant. The extremely disparate nature of different charities' activities meant that there were major limits to this type of analysis (we had anticipated some limits, but we encountered more).
Because of our commitment to make one grant per cause and our overly rigid and narrow definitions of "causes," we feel that we allocated our grant money suboptimally. For example, all Board members agreed that we had high confidence in two of our Cause 1 (saving lives) applicants, but very low confidence in all of our Cause 2 (global poverty) applicants. Yet we had to give equal size grants to the top applicant in each cause (and give nothing to the 2nd-place applicant in Cause 1).
Steps we have taken to improve: We have shifted our approach to "causes" so that they are defined more broadly. This gives us more flexibility to grant the organizations that appeal to us most. We now explore broad sets of charities that intersect in terms of the people they serve and the research needed to understand them, rather than narrower causes based on the goal of an “apples to apples” comparison using consistent metrics. For example, our recent research report addresses the broad area of international aid (note that this link goes to the research homepage).
October 2016 Update: The process we now use for identifying top charities and priority programs is detailed here.
In a sheet that consolidated information from other sheets, we mistakenly included one funding gap twice. This led us to calculate the amount to recommend that Good Ventures grant to Evidence Action's Deworm the World Initiative as $100,000 higher than we would have without the error ($10.4 million instead of $10.3 million). We learned of this error because Deworm the World brought it to our attention. We expect to reduce the amount that we recommend that Good Ventures grant to Evidence Action in a future grant by an offsetting amount.
In the same spreadsheet, we increased our estimate of the total amount of additional funding that Malaria Consortium could absorb by $4.8 million over what we had calculated originally, based on new information we received from Malaria Consortium. We later realized that we had not added in Malaria Consortium's 10% overhead rate, leading us to underestimate the total Malaria Consortium could absorb by $480,000. This did not affect our recommendation to Good Ventures or other donors because the amount we recommended these donors give was limited by the amount of funding available, rather than by the amount that Malaria Consortium could absorb.
Steps we took to improve: 2018 was the first time that we used this spreadsheet format to calculate our recommendations to Good Ventures. While the errors made in 2018 did not, in the end, result in over- or under-funding any top charities, they are indicative of ways spreadsheet errors could lead to mistakes in funding levels. We expect to make updates to the format in 2019 to reduce the risk of error and to build in checks for discrepancies.
How we fell short: Each year, GiveWell publishes a metrics report on our money moved and web traffic. These metrics are part of how we evaluate ourselves. We failed to publish a complete metrics report in 2017, only publishing an interim report at the end of September.
Steps we took to improve: We misassessed the difficulty involved in completing the metrics report. We reassigned responsibility to another staff member who plans to prioritize and publish our 2016 metrics report as soon as possible and 2017 metrics report as soon as possible in 2018.
How we fell short: On November 29th, we released updated charity recommendations. Three of our seven top charities implemented a variety of programs, and our recommendation for them was restricted to a specific program. We did not clearly communicate this fact on our top charities or donate pages, potentially causing donors who gave directly to these three organizations (as opposed to giving via the GiveWell website) to fail to restrict their donations to the programs we recommend.
Steps we've taken to improve: We have updated the pages to reflect the fact that our recommendation for these charities is program-specific.
How we fell short: In early 2015, we discovered some errors in our cost-effectiveness analysis of DMI. See this blog post for details.
Steps we have taken to improve: Going forward, we plan to improve the general transparency and clarity of our cost-effectiveness models, and explicitly prioritize work on cost-effectiveness throughout our research process. See this section of our 2015 annual review for more.
How we fell short: We were not highly confident in our cost-effectiveness estimates when we announced our updated charity recommendations at the end of 2014, a fact we noted in the post, because we finalized our cost-effectiveness analyses later in the year than would have been ideal. See this part of our 2014 annual review for more detail.
Steps we have taken to improve: We plan to improve these analyses by reworking our cost-effectiveness models to improve the general transparency and clarity of the analyses and explicitly prioritizing work on cost-effectiveness throughout our research process.
We are also experimenting with more formal project management to increase the likelihood that we complete all tasks necessary for our year-end recommendations update at the appropriate time.
How we fell short: We published fewer intervention reports than we had planned to at the beginning of 2014. We completed two new intervention reports in 2014, but at the beginning of 2014, we wrote that we hoped to publish 9-14 new reports during the year. On reflection, our goal of publishing 9-14 intervention reports was arbitrary and unrealistic given the amount of time that it has typically taken us to complete intervention reports in the past. See this part of our 2014 annual review for more detail.
Steps we have taken to improve: We have learned more about how much work is involved in completing an intervention report and hope to make more realistic projections about how many we can complete in the future.
How we fell short: In 2014, we erred in our recommendation to Good Ventures about its giving allocation to our top charities. We made this recommendation two weeks before we announced our recommendations publicly so that we could announce their grants as part of our top charities announcement. If we had fully completed our analysis before making a recommendation to Good Ventures, we likely would have recommended relatively more to AMF and relatively less to GiveDirectly. See this part of our 2014 annual review for more detail.
Steps we have taken to improve: In the end, we adjusted the public targets we announced based on the grants Good Ventures had committed to, so we don’t believe that donors gave suboptimally overall. In the future we expect to make — and announce — our recommendations to Good Ventures and the general public simultaneously.
How we fell short: In our 2014 recommendation cycle, we did not alert our candidate charities of our "Standout Charity" second-tier rating prior to announcing our recommendations publicly. Some of our candidate charities were surprised when they saw their ranking as a "Standout Charity," as they had been assuming that they would either be recommended as a top charity or not recommended at all.
Steps we have taken to improve: We will be more cognizant of how we communicate with charities in the future and will continue to solicit feedback from them so we can identify any other ways in which our communication with them is suboptimal.
How we fell short: Elie assigned a relatively new Research Analyst to the task of updating the intervention report on cash transfers. The analyst made the specific updates asked for in the task, which led him to change the report’s conclusion on the effect of cash transfers on business expenditures and revenue. A Summer Research Analyst vetted the page, and we published it. After publishing the update, another GiveWell staff member, who had worked on the page previously, noticed that the report’s conclusion on business expenditures and revenue misstated our view.
Steps we have taken to improve: When this mistake was identified, we made two changes. First, when passing off ownership of a page from one staff member to another, we involved all staff members who had previously owned the page via an explicit "hand-off" meeting, and by getting their approval before publishing the page. Second, we became more careful to ensure that all changes made by relatively inexperienced staff are reviewed by more experienced staff before publication.
October 2016 Update: At the time of this update (October 2016), we still aim to hold an explicit "hand-off" meeting which include staff who previously owned the page, although this meeting does not always include all staff who previously owned the page. We do not require the approval of all staff who previously owned the page prior to publication.
How we fell short: On February 4, 2014, we asked our website developer to make a change to the code that generates our homepage. In the process, he inadvertently copied the homepage content from November 2013. This content had two main differences with the up-to-date content. First, it described our top charities as “proven, cost-effective, underfunded and outstanding” rather than “evidence-backed, thoroughly vetted, and underfunded,” wording we changed in late-2013 because we felt it more accurately described our top charities. Second, it listed our top charities as AMF, GiveDirectly, and SCI, rather than GiveDirectly, SCI, and Deworm the World. According to our web analytics, 98 people visited our AMF page directly after visiting the homepage, possibly believing AMF to be a top charity of ours. Note that the top of our AMF review correctly described our position on AMF at this time.
Steps we’ve taken to improve: We discovered the problem on February 25 and fixed it immediately. We have added a step to our standard process for checking the website after a developer works on it to look for content that is not up to date.
How we fell short: Timothy Telleen-Lawton (GiveWell staff member as of April 2013) has been friends with Paul Niehaus (GiveDirectly President and Director) for many years. When Timothy met Holden Karnofsky (GiveWell's Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director) in April 2011, he suggested that GiveWell look into GiveDirectly and introduced Holden and Paul by email. GiveWell later recommended GiveDirectly as a top charity in November 2012, before Timothy was on GiveWell staff.
Starting in January 2013, Holden started living in a shared house with Timothy, around the same time Timothy started a trial to work at GiveWell. Paul has visited and stayed at the shared house several times. We should have publicly disclosed the social connection between Paul and Holden and Timothy.
Note that this mistake solely relates to information we should have publicly disclosed to avoid any appearance of impropriety. We do not believe that this relationship had any impact on our charity rankings. Timothy was not the staff member responsible for the evaluation of GiveDirectly, and Holden has had relatively little interaction with Paul (and had relatively little interaction with Timothy prior to moving to San Francisco in 2013).
Steps we have taken to improve: We publicly disclosed this fact in December 2013; at that time, we also created a page to disclose conflicts of interest.
How we fell short: We aimed to publish regular updates on the Against Malaria Foundation, but we went most of the year (February to September) without any updates. This was caused by our desire to publish comprehensive updates, and we allowed expectations of new information being available shortly to delay publishing brief updates that had meaningful but limited information.
Steps we have taken to improve: As of July 2013, we changed our process for completing top-charity updates. We began publishing notes from our conversations with these charities (as we do for many of the conversations we have more generally) which should lead to more timely updates on our top charities.
October 2016 Update: We now plan to publish twice-yearly 'refreshes' of all of our top charity recommendations, in addition to publishing conversation notes and relevant updates throughout the year.
How we fell short: From May 20 to June 26, private content was intermittently available to the public on the GiveWell website. A change we made on May 20 caused pages set to be visible by staff only to appear, in some browsers, as a page with a login screen and below it, the unpublished content. Unpublished content includes both confidential information and incomplete research. Confidential information on unpublished pages is generally information that we expect to be able to publish, but which we have not yet received approval from an external party to publish. However, there are exceptions to this and it is possible that sensitive information was revealed. We are not aware of any cases of sensitive information being revealed.
Steps we have taken to improve: We fixed the problem a few hours after discovering it. We have added monitoring of unpublished pages to our list of regular website checks.
How we fell short: During this period, our jobs page invited applicants to apply for our research analyst role. We responded to every applicant by asking them to work on a "charity comparison assignment" in which each applicant compared three charities and discussed which charity they would support and why. This assignment took applicants between 6 and 10 hours to complete. During this period, approximately 50 applicants submitted the assignment, of which we interviewed approximately 8.
We now feel that asking all applicants to complete this test assignment likely took more of their time than was necessary at an early stage in the recruiting process and may have led some strong applicants to choose not to apply.
Steps we've taken to improve: We no longer ask all applicants to complete this assignment. In December 2012, we changed our jobs page to more clearly communicate about our hiring process.
How we fell short: In early GiveWell years, we aimed to release updated recommendations by December 1st in order to post our recommendations before "giving season," the weeks at the end of the year when the vast majority of donations are made. In 2011, we released our recommendations in the last week of November, but then ran into problems related to donation processing. To alleviate those problems in the future, we planned to release our recommendations in 2012 by November 1st to give us sufficient time to deal with problems before the end of the year rush of giving.
In 2012, we did not release our recommendations until the last week of November (significantly missing our goal). We continued to publish research about the cost-effectiveness and evidence of effectiveness for the interventions run by our top charities throughout December, which meant that some donors were making their giving decisions before we had published all the relevant information. The primary cause of the delay was that we did not start work on GiveDirectly, the new 2012 top-rated charity until mid-September, which did not give us enough time to finish its full review by the November 1st deadline.
Steps we've taken to improve: In 2013, we again aim to release our recommendations by November 1. This year, we plan to explicitly consider possible top-rated charities on July 1st and move forward with any contenders at that point. October 2016 Update: We now aim to publish our top-charity recommendations before U.S. Thanksgiving each year, so as to make them available throughout the year-end giving season.
Steps we've taken to improve: GiveWell staff will be more attentive in the future to sharing sensitive public information with the board member responsible for public communication before posting.
How we fell short: Throughout GiveWell's history, we have relied on Skype and staff's individual cell phones to make phone calls. This led to instances of poor call quality or dropped calls, but given the fact that GiveWell was a startup, those we spoke with generally understood. In addition, we had not always confirmed with call participants the phone number to use for a particular call or set up and send agendas for the call in advance. Earlier in GiveWell's history, participants likely understood that we were a very new, small organization just getting started and aiming to control costs. But, as we've grown this is no longer a reasonable justification, and both of the problems listed here may have had implications for the professionalism we've projected to those we've spoken with.
Steps we have taken to improve: We have continued to be more vigilant about confirming that all participants are aware of the number to use for scheduled calls. In March 2012, we set up dedicated lines and handsets for our calls.
While Google covers credit card processing fees for charities enrolled in the Google Grants program (which includes GiveWell, itself, and many of our top charities), many charities are not enrolled and therefore donors who give to them via our website do pay credit card processing fees on their donations. While these fees are small in absolute terms for smaller donors, a 3% fee on a $10,000 donation is $300. Some donors may realize this and choose to give via credit card regardless. Some, however, may not have realized this and would have preferred to have mailed a check to save the fee. October 2016 Update: Donors who support GiveWell or our top charities charities through donations to GiveWell are subject to payment processing fees that vary depending on the platform through which they donate; we no longer receive free processing through Google due to the end of that program. We have published a page detailing the options for donating to GiveWell and associated fees, as well as advice for larger donors interested in minimizing such fees.
People making large donations very frequently run into problems with their credit card companies (due to the fact that they are spending so much more on a single item than they usually do). In our experience, about half of donations over $5,000 are declined the first time a donor tries to make the gift and are only cleared after he or she speaks with his card company. This creates confusion and unexpected hassle for donors trying to give to charity.
Giving via appreciated stock has beneficial implications for donors allowing them to reduce future capital gains taxes and therefore give more to charity (without giving more "real" money). We did not broadcast this message to donors.
October 2016 Update: In addition to our page listing giving options for donors, we also have a page of advice for larger donors, including donating appreciate securities.
On December 21, 2011, a representative from Imperial College Foundation (the organization receiving donations for the support of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, our #2-rated charity in 2011) emailed us to let us know that its Google Checkout account had been suspended. Donors who wanted to give to SCI via the GiveWell website give via Google Checkout, and though the Google Checkout button is on the GiveWell website, the charity owns the Checkout account and donations go right to it. GiveWell staff therefore did not know there was a problem until the ICF representative informed us of it. We still do not know how long the problem lasted or whether any donors attempted to make donations during the time the account was suspended. (We do not even know how Google communicated to them about the error). ICF contacted Google but has not determined what led to the account suspension.
Once we learned of the problem, we reconfigured donations to go through GiveWell.
As noted elsewhere on this page, many larger donations made via credit card are initially declined by credit card companies due to the fact that many donors give a larger amount to charity than they spend in a single purchase throughout the year. Because donations go directly to our charities, at times, GiveWell has to coordinate with charities representatives to cancel charges so that donors feel safe resubmitting their donation. This creates confusion, wastes time, and doesn't allow donors to complete the transaction as quickly as they would like.
Setting up trackable donation processing for our top charities requires individual communication with each charity. This means that we must spend time communicating with each charity, and each charity must spend time creating its account. Also, in the event that the charity does not have time to set up the account or sets up the account but it has a problem, the required tracking may not be in place. With several charities in 2011, tracking was either not set up at the time we released our recommendations or we needed to create a one-off workaround to track donations to them.
We plan to better advise larger donors of their non-credit-card options for donating and potential hassles of donating via credit card. October 2016 Update: We have a page of advice for larger donors that discusses options for making large donations. We also have an information page discussing different donation options.
We are now considering switching over donations to all charities to go through GiveWell so that we are immediately aware of any problems. October 2016 Update: We offer donors the option of donating to GiveWell for regranting to our top charities, or donating directly to our top charities and letting us know that they've done so.
We aim to complete our recommendations earlier in 2012 than 2011 (to give us additional time to address any problems that come up).
How we fell short: Our top-rated charity in 2011 was the Against Malaria Foundation. We made two errors in the way we communicated to donors about the ramifications of donating to AMF.
Fees: On our donate to AMF page, we told donors that "no fees are charged on donations to AMF." This was incorrect. Donors who give via AMF's website are charged normal credit card processing fees. We now understand that we miscommunicated with AMF on this issue; AMF did not intend to communicate that there are no processing fees and was unaware that we were communicating this on our site.
Fees: We changed the language on our page to clarify that credit card fees are charged on donations via AMF's website. We also provided donors who wished to give for the support of AMF the option to give donations directly to GiveWell. Because GiveWell was enrolled in Google's Grants program, Google paid credit card processing fees for donations. GiveWell then had the ability to regrant these funds to AMF.
October 2016 Update: Credit card processing fees are incurred if a donor supports AMF through GiveWell; they are no longer covered by Google. Additional details are available here.
Tax deductibility in Australia: We took several actions. (1) We emailed Rob Mather, AMF's CEO. He agreed that the charity status page on AMF's website was misleading. AMF edited the page to clarify its status in Australia, and Rob Mather offered to refund any donations (or parts of donations) made by Australians relying on the fact that they could receive a tax deduction. (2) On our site, we removed Australia from the list of countries in which AMF is registered for individual-donor tax deductibility. (3) We emailed all Australian donors who had given to AMF (and had found AMF via GiveWell) since we had posted that donations to AMF are tax-deductible for Australians to let them know we had erred and we communicated Rob Mather's offer to refund donations. AMF is in the process of applying for tax deductible status for individuals and will inform us if and when that has been granted. AMF has also told us that the two donors that have asked for refunds have both said they will donate the same amount to AMF when the tax deductible status is in place.
As of September 2015, gifts from individuals to AMF are tax deductible in Australia. See this blog post for details.
How we fell short: When reviewing Village Enterprise (formerly Village Enterprise Fund) in late 2009, we projected that they would spend 41% of total expenses on grants to business groups, because we misinterpreted a document they sent us which projected spending 41% of total expenses on business grants and mentorship expenses. We do not know what mentorship expenses were expected to be so we do not know the magnitude of our error. Village Enterprise ended up spending 20% of total expenses on business grants in FY 2010. We caught this mistake ourselves when we were updating the review in August 2011. Village Enterprise plans to spend 28% of total expenses on business grants in FY 2012.
Steps we are taking to improve: We have updated our review of Village Enterprise to reflect the correct distribution of expenses. Going forward, before publishing a page, at least one additional GiveWell employee will check the original source of figures that play a key role in our conclusions about a charity or program.
October 2016 Update: We do not always implement this check before publication; sometimes pages are vetted after they are published.
How we fell short: Between 8/1/2009-12/31/2009, we accepted applications for $250,000 in funding for economic empowerment programs in sub-Saharan Africa. We attempted to be extremely clear with charities that we planned on sharing the materials they submitted, and that agreeing to disclosure was a condition of applying, but in a minority of cases, we failed to communicate this. We conceded these cases and gave the charities in question the opportunity to have their materials - and even the mention of the fact that they had applied for funding - withheld.
We try to avoid keeping materials confidential unless absolutely necessary, and in this case our unclear communications led to confrontations and to confidentiality situations that could have been avoided.
Details at this blog post.
We offered the minority of charities with whom we'd been unclear the option not only to have their materials omitted, but to have us not disclose the fact that they applied for funding from us.
We added clarificatory language to the top of our charity reviews, in order to clarify what a "0-star rating" means.
In the future, we may publicly publish pages on charities we consider before we accept materials from them, in order to make our intentions about disclosure and public discussion absolutely clear.
October 2016 Update: Details of our current transparency policy are available here.
In this case, we published our post without such a check, reasoning that we were not sharing any substantive materials (only paraphrasing general statements from representatives). Doing so gave the impression that sharing more information can result in more negative coverage.
We continue to struggle with the balance between disclosing as much information as possible and avoiding disincentives to share information. We will not find a solution in every case, but feel that we mishandled this one.
Steps we have taken to improve: We have let Acumen Fund know that we regret this incident and resolved to be more careful about quoting from representatives and grant applications in the future.
How we fell short: In May 2009, we discussed the Millions Saved project with a staff member of the project, Dr. Jessica Gottlieb, and then published a copy of the recording of the conversation to our website. Dr. Gottlieb approved making the recording public on the condition that we remove personal references that she made during the conversation. We partially removed the references, but we failed to remove one person's email address and Dr. Gottlieb's suggestion that we speak with a particular person. We noticed this error in February 2014 while preparing to use this recording as part of a test assignment for potential employees. According to our logs, no one had downloaded the audio file during the previous year.
Steps we have taken to improve: We notified Dr. Gottlieb about this mistake and apologized to her. Subsequent to (and unrelated to this error), we had implemented a formal procedure for reviewing uploaded files to confirm that all requested changes to files have been made.
How we fell short: At our board meeting in January 2008, we agreed to explore options for professional development and mentoring, in light of the relative youth and inexperience of our staff. GiveWell staff put a lower priority on this than more time-sensitive goals, and while we explored a few options, we made little progress on it between January and September. At the September Board meeting, the Board criticized this lack of progress and reiterated the need for professional development and mentoring.
Steps we have taken to improve: As of July 2009, we had two highly regular mentoring relationships, and two more in a "trial phase." We also stepped up Board oversight through a monthly conference call (attendance was optional but generally high) and more regular calls with Board Vice-President Lindy Miller. An update on professional development was presented at our July 2009 Board meeting.

industry_corpus2: Others


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Published on February 27, 2010 in Better Grades, Note Taking, Speed Learning, Speed Reading, Study Less and Study Tips. 2 Comments Tags: Best Study Skills, How To Speed Read, How To Study Better, Study Tips.
I have been reading your study ebook and have only once listened to your speed reading video once.
The extra emails you send after I bought your study book are great as they keep me on track, otherwise I would wonder a bit.
I am now in a study room not the office which had too many distractions and getting into the mind zone more quickly – it’s the little suggestions like this that make all the difference.
comprehend and remember a lot more. I can afford to do this because I can do speed reading, even though I still need to improve and increase my reading speed.
My assignment grades have increased from about 60-80% to the last one which I got 88%!!! This was my highest grade.
My studies are extramural so no lecturers only Webct, study guide and textbooks.
I am practicing my speed reading and using on my first read but need to work on this more. When you speed read a page when do you highlight the text? I read the paragraph then go back and highlight?
So lots more to learn!
Thanking you very much for you help.
Published on December 24, 2008 in Better Grades, Exams, General and Study Less. 0 Comments Tags: Best Study Skills, developing study skills, Easy Study Tips, Effective Study Skills, Get Better Grades, How to Study, How To Study Better, How to Study Smarter, Study Techniques.
Whether you are thinking about saving your grades or you just feel as though you need a bit of a boost as the semester wears on, you will find that one of the simplest things you can do to get your grades up and to keep them up is to read your materials before you go to class.
It seems simple, but the truth is that reading this information beforehand can give you an impressive edge when it comes to understanding the course material and to helping it sink in.
Doing your reading will go a long way towards facilitating a better understanding of the lecture materials. The truth of it is, that the lecture and the text are meant to be complementary, not repetitions of each other. Reading ahead will help you fill in the blanks during the lecture.
With so many of us in competitive class environments, you will find that reading ahead can give you a head start on a number of things. If there is something that is puzzling you in the text, you will discover that you can ask questions when they are relevant and fresh in your teacher’s mind.
This will get you a better response than if you are going to be reading the material late and then getting to it weeks after it was discussed. Reading ahead can also help you understand the concepts more thoroughly.
You will find that as you read, you will start to get a grasp on what is happening with the information, and then what your teacher says in class later on will further emphasize it. Think about how much more effective a student you will be if you simply read ahead before going to class!
There are plenty of great and easy study tips like this one in Get Better Grades with the Least Amount of Effort, the most comprehensive e-book on the market for this subject!
P.S. Yes I know, these study tips are simple – this is just one of many that can improve your grades with the least amount of effort! So what are you waiting for?
Published on August 25, 2008 in General, Memory Skills and Note Taking. 3 Comments Tags: Best Study Skills, Effective Study Skills, Fast Study Tips, How To Study Better, How to Study For Exam, How to Study Smarter, Learn How to Study, Online Study Skills, Study Skill Tips, Tips On How To Study.
Are you tired of constantly taking notes and still not remembering everything your teacher says?
If so, you’ll be happy to know I’ve put together some informative techniques for you. Once you start using these methods, remembering will become much easier for those difficult tests ahead.
Take out some of your notes right now. What is the same throughout all of them?
I bet it’s he pen or pencil colour. When something is one dimensional like this on an entire page, it’s hard to remove segments from each page. Instead, try using coloured pens and pencils to take your notes.
Remember, make this a routine and positive results will soon follow. How soon?
Within HOURS. You’ll start to KNOW and FEEL like you can remember more, but NOTHING happens unless you give it a go.
The more visual cues you can create, the easier it will be to recall information later. The use of colours is the simplest way to improve memory recall. As you begin experimenting with different colours, you may notice that some colours work better than others. You may even prefer to use some colours for specific uses.
I like to write the body of my text in a colour other than blue, usually black, with non-black highlights. I always correct it in red if necessary. This is due to the extreme contrast that black and red represent to one another. You’ll end up being able to find it much easier on your pages cluttered with notes.
Sometimes, when I am studying something I find boring, I will write the notes in purple or green so it stands out in my mind – when I am trying to recall THAT topic, I can think in purple or green instead of trying to ‘find it’ amongst the blue and black.
This is very important when taking notes. Be creative and explore different variations. Multi-stroke, underlining, boxes, circles, and shadows are effective in drawing attention to increasingly important items or definitions. Just be sure not to overdue it or this technique will become ineffective.
You’ll know when you get to the right proportion of highlighting.
You’ll also know if it’s better for you to capture the notes FIRST and then come back to HIGHLIGHT later. I find it helps to do it LATER if I have trouble remembering something. If I can easily remember, I won’t highlight it. This is especially the case the NIGHT BEFORE THE EXAM. That REALLY helps if the highlights weren’t there previously.
Sometimes things just can’t be communicated clearly only using words. Relationships, timelines, causality and exchanges are difficult to explain in writing. However, they are easy to illustrate even for the artistically challenged like me!
These diagrams should include colours and other graphical representations such as bullets, arrows, shading and text of different colours. Doodles work just as well – the KEY is to jog your MEMORY – not win a drawing contest.
Don’t forget that NO ONE ever sees your notes, only you do!
I use large paper that is a little smaller than A3 or 11″x17″. Ideally buy old-fashioned printer in continuous forms that are sold in boxes of 5,000 sheets that cost around $25-$30. It’s a great investment considering it’ll last you several years!
I like the continuous nature of computer paper because I can “open it up” and get big diagrams on one sheet that can be easily folded and reviewed at the last minute, just before an exam.
There are one or two different things I do with these large sheets. Either I get all the main points of a course on one sheet or I section each page into a subject, topic or idea. It really just depends on the course that I am taking.
Regardless, they are both great ways to CAPTURE the proper information you need in a VISUAL FORMAT that is easier to REMEMBER.
For instance, I recently took a course where each lecture was reduced to one entire page. It consolidated 17 textbook chapters and 30 academic articles. The point is, it’s a lot easier to review 15 pages as opposed to over 500 in a textbook. What would normally take several hours of searching is now formatted for easy access within minutes.
Seriously though, creating these pages is “fun” for me. I know that when I am doing an exercise, it is all being stored in my memory banks.
When you try it you’ll feel your level of confidence build so that you’ll have a greater sense of control. In the end it’s important to see the “big picture” as a visual cue. In my book, “Get The Best Grades With The Least Amount Of Effort“,I explain how you can make this process even more powerful using your auditory and kinesthetic senses for ABSOLUTE RECALL!
Please post a comment and I will respond to you to make sure you are developing study skills by revealing tips on how to study that will help you learn how to study for exams and tests so can possess better study skills and how to study smarter.
If you want the best study skills, you just need to post a comment and I will address YOUR particular issue to make sure You Get The Best Grades With The Least Amount Of Effort!
Consider it a PERSONAL 1:1 CONSULTATION!

industry_corpus2: Subject Education


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SAN ANTONIO (May 25, 2016) – Unbeaten rising featherweight contender Miguel Flores (19-0, 9 KOs) will take on Mexican veteran Ruben Tamayo (24-8-4, 16 KOs) this Saturday night, May 28, in a 10-round fight on Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 and FOX Deportes from The Dancehall in San Antonio.
Televised coverage begins at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT and is headlined by former world champion Miguel Vazquez battling tough contender Erick Bone in a 10-round super lightweight showdown.
Undercard action will feature the brother of former world champion Omar Figueroa, Brandon Figueroa (6-0, 4 KOs), in a super bantamweight battle against Puerto Rico’s Jonell Nieves (6-2, 4 KOs), unbeaten 25-year-old lightweight Rickey Edwards (10-0, 3 KOs) in a six-round bout against fellow unbeaten John Delperdang (5-0, 5 KOs) and Los Angeles prospect Emmanuel Medina (9-0, 6 KOs) in a six-round welterweight showdown against Isiah Robinson (3-2, 2 KOs).
Additional action features a slew of local prospects as unbeaten Enrique Neira Jr. competes in a four-round middleweight bout against Rudy Lozano, Ramon Cardenas facing Isau Duenez in a four-round super bantamweight contest, unbeaten Rolando Garza battles Houston’s Rick Graham in a four-round super welterweight fight and the pro debut of Xavier Wilson in a four-round lightweight affair against Thomas Smith.
Tickets for the live event, which is promoted by Leija Battah Promotions and TGB Promotions, are priced at $100, $85 and $20 and $1,000 and $850 for VIP tables, before taxes and fees and are on sale now. To purchase tickets, call (210) 988-8821 visit http://lbtickets.ticketleap.com/march28th2016/ or in person at Champion Fit Gym at 6824 San Pedro Ave.
An undefeated fighter from Michoacan, Mexico, but fighting out of Houston, Flores has not lost since turning pro in 2009 at just 17-years-old. The 23-year-old had a big 2015 beginning in May with a victory over German Meraz and followed up by wins against Juan Ruiz, Carlos Padilla and Alfred Tetteh. He started 2016 with a headlining win over Mario Briones at The Dancehall in January. Now he will take on the 27-year-old Tamayo of Sonora, Mexico. The southpaw has wins over veterans including Meraz and Jose Cayetano and he challenged Jesus Cuellar for a world title in 2014.
For more information visit www.premierboxingchampions.com, TGBPromotions.com, http://www.foxsports.com/presspass/homepage and www.foxdeportes.com. Follow on Twitter @PremierBoxing, @TitereVazquez, @LeijaBattahPR, @TGBPromotions @FS1, @FOXDeportes, @CowboysDanceHal and @Swanson_Comm and become a fan on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/PremierBoxingChampions, www.facebook.com/foxsports and www.facebook.com/foxdeportes. PBC on FS1 and FOX Deportes is sponsored by Corona Extra, La Cerveza Mas Fina.
Downloadable high-resolution photographs for media use.

industry_corpus2: Sports


text: Ardfiled Farm sits on 15 acres of south facing land boarded on 2 sides by Pisgah National Forest. The 15 acres is mostly wooded, promoting biodiversity and giving protection from drifting pesticides. At Ardfield Farm, we use bio-intensive methods, organic compost teas and amendments. We practice companion planting and composting, and are working toward including biodynamic practices on land. We are committed to keeping the earth and our bodies healthy through organic practices.

industry_corpus2: Agriculture & Fisheries


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Located conveniently on Mangrove Road, pull up out the front of the Canelands Shopping Centre and enjoy a coffee and meal at the delicious Stellarossa. These guys produce quality coffee and their portion size is bound to satisfy your appetite after a long cycle. While your sipping away on your long black or flat white, grab a slice of their cake that is baked onsite. If your morning bike ride travels into lunchtime this is the best spot to park, as they have a selection of sandwiches that are packed with local meats and salads to keep you full all day.
If you’re feeling really ravenous, add a side of thick cut chips or even order a big pasta to really satisfy your hunger. Their signature coffees are exploding with caffeine and calcium, exactly what you will need after a cross country-style cycle. What’s really cool about Stellarossa is that you can sit outside on the deck and enjoy the beautiful river views while cooling down after your workout. The meals and coffee at Stellarossa are well priced and are going to satisfy everyone’s needs. So, if you’re a part of a cycling group, Stellarossa is the perfect place to try.
Mackay Metro Restaurant Cafe Bar is a family owned business that boasts speciality roasted coffee that will pump you full of caffeine to keep you going for hours. Mackay Metro Restaurant Cafe Bar is located conveniently on River Street, so it’s super easy to pull up right out the front of the café with a large group of your cycling friends. Put your feet up momentarily and have a quick snack so you can hit the road again and keep that heart rate pumping.
Mackay Metro Restaurant Cafe Bar is renowned for their ridiculously tasty beverages, including iced mocha frappes that are oozing with chocolate goodness. Make sure you try this baby, and don’t worry about the calorie content as you’ve been working up a sweat all morning. These guys have some raving reviews and they consistently provide quality service with a smile. Mackay Metro Restaurant Cafe Bar has a friendly team of baristas ready to whip you up a little piece of coffee heaven.
The baristas at Woodman’s Axe Espresso live and breathe coffee while using the highest quality products that they source locally. They seasonally rotate their beans through the espresso bar to keep coffee-lovers palates craving more. Woodman’s Axe Espresso are a little bit fancy, so, if you’re passionate about coffee, this is where you should detour on you morning bike route.
The guys at Woodman’s Axe Espresso always ensure they use the highest quality equipment on the market and, for the coffee gurus out there, this includes Synesso and Expobar espresso machines. Their premium espresso blend is rich in flavour with a spicy and nutty hint. Their signature blend incorporates a pinch of butterscotch and a dark chocolate finish. The inhouse tea options are supplied by Tea Drop, and the hot chocolate they stock is one of the best in town supplied by MOFO Deluxe – you have to try it! They open at 6am, so if you’re an early rider come in and say hello to the friendly baristas at Woodman’s Axe Espresso.
Are you a Mackay cyclists? Where do you stop to refuel throughout your ride? Let us know in the comments below.

industry_corpus2: Hospitality & Catering


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We had so many plans this past week - concerts, lights, holiday shows. Then life happened and all of it, came to not be. That's okay it happens, sometimes life is more about going with the flow, adjusting plans, and not stressing out about perfecting all the plans. When it came to the weekend, we both wanted to just chill, play some video games, and enjoy each others company. The morning started with Veronica's Apple Pancakes. This recipe is so different from most pancake recipes I have tried, because I make us each one massive pancake, instead of many small ones. The rest of the batter is saved for the next day and it's enough to make us each one more. I find this simpler than regular pancakes, it's less work, you aren't forever flipping pancakes for everyone else and eating yours cold. Then it was off to Madison's Holiday Market. The market was interesting, as before we go to any event I do a ton of research about it. I do this to ensure I am aware of the cost, parking situation, restrictions on going, time its open, etc. I also copy all the events details into our calendar to remember all those things. So when we showed up and they were asking for a donation for entry I was so frustrated! It didn't say that a donation was needed anywhere on their website and we felt like we were assholes for not having anything to give.
RANT I hate giving during the holiday season, it's the one time of year everyone else does. I prefer to give in February, when the donations are running low and people are feeling burdened by that. There are so many issues with people giving food for donation, it's usually soon to be expired or weird stuff that no one uses. When we donate we prefer doing cash as it can be stretched further and used for what is actually needed, like vegetables.
We did end up going in after an awkward moment. This was our fourth holiday market of the season but it's the biggest one we've been too. The issue with going to so many markets in a short time frame is that they all start to look the same. There are a variety of vendors but holiday season means everyone is basically selling the same thing - trees, Santa hats, stocking stuffers, etc. I am always looking for unique things that fit our personalities as well as our house, not an easy thing. Turns out I'm very picky and not many people make black, white or gray things. We wandered through and eventually stopped at a the Wisconsin Candle Company and picked up a lovely Bourbon Vanilla scent. I've been loving my candle I got Confectionique, but it's almost gone and a replacement was needed. It smells so lovely and I have never had a soy candle before.
With candle in hand, we went home.
The rest of the day, was spent on video games and Kevin fixing everything! I got an aircard for my camera, put it in wrong and he had to use pliers to get it out. Then he had to get it working with my computer, still not sure if that's going to happen. We'd also been having issues with my backup storage. He checked it out, only to discover it was completely corrupted and all data was ruined. Thankfully we had just finished getting everything backed up online, so I didn't lose anything but it was scary for a moment. This is a huge reason why we have backups to our backups!
Before bed, we did yoga. Yoga has come back into my life, I tend to have moments have fascination with it and moments of frustration. The last time I wrote about fitness it was saying I was coming back after a two month break and was doing a 30 day yoga challenge. We both did that challenge and then decided to do more, except this time, stop being lazy about it and start to challenge ourselves. It's been harder but so worth it. The first photo is me having fun and getting out of the pose, but the second photo is me in it. I'm getting there, I'm holding it, but I want to be stronger, so the next photo looks even better. I am following a yogi on Instagram and her then and now photos are so inspiring! Makes me want to work even harder, so I can have a collection of those too.
That was our day. Nothing exciting but when life throws all your plans out the window, make pancakes, buy a candle and kick your legs up. Holiday season needs to be about enjoying yourself and not this perfect idea of things. At least that's my two cents, what's your thoughts?


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Clearly, the President was enjoying the opportunity to honor people he deeply admired. The medals were presented roughly in alphabetical order, so Professor Yunus was nearly the last to be mentioned in the President’s speech and called up to receive his medal. The two exchanged a few words before the President fastened the medal around Professor Yunus’ neck. The moment when the President presented the medal was magical – one that I was able to capture with my camera/phone. During the reception afterward, where people like Sidney Portier, Desmond Tutu and Billie Jean King mingled with assorted guests and friends of the honorees, a new friend and I speculated about why President Obama did not mention that his mother was an earlier pioneer in the microfinance field, based in Indonesia. We concluded that the President – despite his deep personal connections to the work of Dr. Yunus, Rev. Lowery and others – wanted to keep the spotlight firmly focused on the honorees, rather than on himself. How appropriate!
When Dr. Yunus’ invitees got their picture taken with the President and First Lady, I introduced myself and mentioned that I was President of Grameen Foundation. Michelle Obama said, “That’s great!” Dr. Yunus, standing nearby, said, “So, you should be talking to each other” – pointing to Mrs. Obama and to me. I can only hope that is what the future holds. For now, I am basking in a day where I can feel proud of my country and my association with Grameen, and appreciate my good fortune to be able to work under Dr. Yunus’ halo in pursuit of a poverty-free world.
This entry was posted on August 12, 2009 at 10:51 pm and is filed under microfinance.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Great to see orgainsations doing such practical work! all strength to you arms.
We at Development Exchange Centre, Nigeria feel proud to associate with Grameen Foundation, and so also Muhammad Yunus’s practical efforts in championing microfinance and social business as a tool of fighting poverty.
Mitra Dhuafa is the one of Grameen Replication in Indonesia and one of Grameen foundation partner. Congratulation to our “leader” Prof. Muhammad Yunus and my friend, Alex. Thanks for give your spirit to us for fighting poverty.
Glad to see that Gramin Foundation encourage the people who are involve to remove the povertyfrom the world. Mr. counts as you know I also touch with you from last long time and get the important information. As you know very that myself involve in this way with my soul.

industry_corpus2: Finance & Economics


text:
knowledge representation, student modeling, hierarchical evaluation, diagnosis, fuzzy logic, Bayesian inference.
This paper is about the management of student knowledge evaluation in an intelligent tutoring system in order to support diagnosis process. The evaluation consists in assessing the student’s state of knowledge at several levels of granularity. The domain knowledge is distributed among five levels. Each level is characterized by a particular paradigm of knowledge representation depending of the type of knowledge involved. The evaluation in upper levels is carried out by the propagation of the evaluation from lower level using Bayesian inferences and neural networks classifications.


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Oct 25 (Reuters) - Celgene Corp's quarterly earnings rose 14 percent, beating expectations on strong sales of its Revlimid cancer treatment and lower costs, but investors were more focused on ongoing studies of its promising new medicines and wider uses for Revlimid.
The company, which narrowly raised its full-year earnings view, said on Thursday it earned $424 million, or 97 cents per share, in the third quarter. That compared with $373 million, or 81 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.
Excluding special items, Celgene earned $1.29 per share. Analysts, on average, had expected $1.27, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The higher than expected profit was due in part to lower costs of goods and a smaller number of outstanding company shares, analysts said.
``Overall, we are pleased to see the company continuing to deliver operating leverage and bottom-line beats with increases in earnings guidance,'' Sanford Bernstein analyst Geoffrey Porges said in a research note.
In a conference call with analysts, Celgene said its roster of experimental drugs has the potential to drive future growth. They include pomalidomide, for multiple myeloma patients who have relapsed or failed to respond to other treatments, and apremilast for psoriasis and arthritis associated with the skin condition.
``Apremilast has the potential to transform Celgene,'' Chief Executive Bob Hugin said.
The company said it aims to seek U.S. marketing approval for the drug in the first quarter of 2013 for psoriatic arthritis, and in the second half of that year for treatment of moderate to severe psoriasis.
Company revenue in the third quarter rose 14 percent to $1.42 billion, topping Wall Street expectations of $1.41 billion.
Sales of Revlimid, Celgene's biggest product and profit driver, jumped 18 percent to $970 million, in line with Wall Street forecasts. The growth was fueled by earlier and longer patient use of the drug for multiple myeloma, and introduction of the medicine in new regions.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells - a type of white blood cell responsible for producing antibodies - that affects the bone marrow. The cancer eventually interferes with production of normal blood cells. The National Cancer Institute estimated that 21,700 people in the United States will be diagnosed with myeloma in 2012.
Sales of Abraxane, a treatment for metastatic breast cancer, fell 6 percent to $106 million. Celgene said the decline was partly due to a surge in U.S. demand for the drug in 2011 as a result of shortages of standard chemotherapy agent paclitaxel.
Celgene, which had been criticized for paying $2.9 billion in 2010 for Abraxis Bioscience in order to obtain Abraxane, is testing the drug in other types of cancer.
U.S. regulators recently approved use of Abraxane as a first-line treatment of the most common form of lung cancer. The drug also has been successful against metastatic melanoma in a late-stage trial whose full results will be disclosed next month.
Sales of Vidaza, used to treat a group of blood disorders known as myelodysplastic syndromes, rose 15 percent to $220 million. Sales of Thalomid, the company's older treatment for multiple myeloma, fell 10 percent to $75 million.
The company boosted its 2012 earnings forecast, excluding special items, to between $4.85 and $4.90 per share, from a previous view of $4.80 to $4.85.
Celgene said it expects full-year Revlimid sales to rise about 18 percent to between $3.75 and $3.8 billion. It previously forecast $3.75 billion to $3.85 billion.
Shares of Celgene were up 0.7 percent to $74.60 in late morning trading on the Nasdaq, in line with gains for the NYSARC Biotech Index.

industry_corpus2: Biopharmaceuticals