tmacaulay

Hi, thanks for your interest!

Our fund managers work at the Open Philanthropy project, where they work full-time, finding the very best donation opportunities. They look for charities working in their key focus areas, which have a good track record and a robust evidence base to support their chosen intervention. If the program you'd like to recommend is within one of their key focus areas, run some quick calculations to check if the charity you'd like to recommend is within the same range of cost-effectiveness as the previous grantees. If so - great! we'd love to hear about it, and I'd recommend you get in touch with the program officer in charge of the program area your non-profit targets. We recommend running this quick test because while many non-profit programs have a plausible story for impact, very few non-profits surpass our stringent bar for effectiveness.

GiveWell is especially excited to see non-profits working on these intervention areas http://blog.givewell.org/2015/10/15/charities-wed-like-to-se...

We don't charge any management fees, you can donate through EA funds, and we'll pass on 100% of the money we receive to the charities.

We don't consider a charities' overhead when evaluating effectiveness, in the same way that you don't consider how much Tim Cook gets paid when you decide whether to buy an iPhone. Historically, groups like Charity Navigator have looked at overhead ratios for one simple reason - they're much easier to measure. Unfortunately, overhead ratios are simply not a useful measure for evaluating charity effectiveness, and they are easily gamed by unscrupulous charities trying to raise funding. Instead, we look at the total costs a charity incurs, and add in any costs that they don't include in their budget, but are necessary to deliver their program. Then we look at the outcomes the charity achieves for that funding as a whole. I'd check out Dan Pallotta's TED talk if you want to know more the overhead myth. https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_abou...

Just to add my $0.02, my impression is that while many EAs enjoy discussing the thorny philosophical issues like whether we should be concerned about insect-suffering, or wild-animal suffering, very few would advocate that we actually support habitat destruction or massive interventions in nature. Even groups like FRI, who are heavily focused on suffering, promote the idea of moral uncertainty. They believe that we should avoid drastic actions based on a narrow ethical view, due to uncertainty about which ethical views are more valid.

Like with everything, more controversial issues are more likely to be picked up by the media and blown out of proportion, relative to the actual level of support they receive. I would be extremely surprised if any money from the CEA Animal Welfare Fund went to support habitat destruction to reduce wild-animal suffering. I would be less surprised if money from the fund went to support research into animal consciousness, to help us better compare different types of animal welfare interventions.

80,000 Hours has a very simple job board (https://80000hours.org/job-board/)

While there aren't many job openings posted, many effective organizations are often open to hiring talented individuals at other times throughout the year. It's definitely worth dropping organizations a quick email to let them know you're interested in future opportunities. If any of you are interested in working at CEA in the future, head to our website and ask to be added to our recruitment email list. We'll be hiring for 4-6 positions later in the year.

The Long-Term future fund is designed to be fairly broad at some point, and it may well support some climate change initiatives in the future, as well as addressing potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence, and any other potential global catastrophic risks. Nick Beckstead has previously expressed interest in funding more research to quantify the tail risks associated with runaway climate change in particular.

Having said that, one of the reasons that EA has not focused as heavily on climate change historically is that climate change is not as neglected as potential risks from AI, or biotechnology. We are happy to see a lot of funding going into climate research and modelling, and a lot of grassroots activism. While climate change is far from solved, and remains one of the most important problems of our time, many EAs think that we should first focus on problems which receive less media attention but are plausibly just as serious.

That's true. You can donate to GiveWell's top charities directly through GiveWell. For many donors, especially those who only want to donate to proven charities with a good track record, this is a great choice.

With our Global Health and Development Fund, we hope to also make small, seed grants to promising new initiatives, to help them build evidence to support their program, or to replicate a promising intervention in a new geographic region, to figure out if the program can scale. Many of these donation opportunities are small, and individual donors won't necessarily hear about them. With Elie managing this fund, we hope to be able to quickly fund promising new projects, so they spend less time on PR and fundraising, and more time doing good work.

Thanks for your feedback, the dynamic you're talking about is exactly the problem we're trying to solve. We want the best charities, which target the biggest needs, in a cost-effective way, to get the most funding.

New Incentives changed what they were focusing on because their initial program was proven to be less effective. They got some initial results from their study, and it showed that because they could only reach a smaller number of people, their program didn't hit the threshold they were targeting for cost-effectiveness.

Right now charities are incentivised to skew their programs towards areas in which they can get the most funding. We're trying to fund programs based on effectiveness, and build a community of donors who will donate to whatever programs are proven to be the most effective. If people founding non-profits know that there is a community of donors who will fund programs that work, we fix these incentives, and we hope to see many more effective programs launched. This should make it easier for effective charities to get the funding they need to grow.

We don't focus on special interest groups, and we don't fund whatever our largest donors are most interested in, we only fund programs that are highly effective.

It's really great to hear this view. While lots of donors split their donation between our funds, many people choose to allocate 100% of their donation to a single fund. At a later date, we want to allow people to share their fund allocations, so donors can compare allocations and discuss differences in cause prioritization.

Right now, our Global Health and Development Fund has 61% of all donations by value, with the Long-Term future fund coming in at 22%. It will be exciting to see how this changes over time, and whether there are differences in fund allocation by geographic area or demographics.

FWIW, about 11% of people at our last conference identified themselves as following an earn-to-give path, and we think that's about the right proportion. We don't think everyone should earn-to-give, but we do think it's a path that some people should consider.

I spent about a year earning-to-give as a pharmacist myself before I realised that I could probably do much more good by joining CEA and doing direct work. I gained lots of valuable, real-world experience working in hospitals, and also at big organizations like the Red Cross, this experience not only helped me donate to charity in the short-term, but also to use that experience in my direct work now. I hope that many people will follow a similar path.

Hi, thanks for your post. I think that many EAs would agree with you here. Effective Altruism is not just about maximizing QALYs. It's about figuring out what doing good even means, figuring out how to improve the world, and then actually doing it. We're not just about educating people on one narrow conception of what doing good means, we know that doing good is hard and complex, so we're trying to build a community of people focused on figuring that out. Our community debates what it means to do the most good endlessly, and there is a lot of nuance, that's what we love about it! You mentioned some interesting issues in population ethics in your post, it appears you take the person-affecting view. Many EAs who take this view prefer to support global health, or animal welfare charities, as they do not think it is beneficial to maximise the number of happy people in the world. Other people in our community think that a world with more people is better, provided that adding more people does not reduce the overall total happiness. In our summary of the Long-Term future Fund, you can read Nick's take on the person-affecting view[0] and see some more links to discussion of this issue. We love getting into these debates and seeing lots of different perspectives. [0] https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds/far-future

We do need many more talented people to found and work for effective non-profits. At CEA, we've found it hard to hire extremely talented people, as many of the people we want to hire want to continue donating instead! Non-profits often find it hard to attract top talent, in part because they tend to pay lower salaries, working at a non-profit is less prestigious, and because talented people tend to want to work with other talented people. We have been impressed with Y Combinator's approach here, they're trying to incentivize talented people to found really effective non-profits, and then help them scale. We're hoping that if donors are willing to fund these new promising projects, many more people will be drawn to the non-profit world. On the other hand, just like founding a company is not for everyone, neither is working at a non-profit. We should each consider our comparative advantage. As tempestn mentioned, some people might be extremely good at their day-job and be well compensated for it, but might not necessarily make excellent activists. In that case, that person might be able to help the causes they care about most by donating to effective charities. We need all kinds of people!

We agree, effective altruism attempts to focus on problems that are important, tractable and neglected. Animal welfare fits squarely into this bucket for all the reasons you mentioned. In particular, we often focus on farm animal welfare, as this is an area that is particularly neglected. I love this post from Animal Charity Evaluators[0] which explains that while farmed animals account for 99% of animals killed and used by humans in the US, the vast majority of donations go to animal shelters, with only 1% going to charities which help reduce the suffering of farmed animals. [0] https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/why-farmed-animals/

Haha, this is what the YC partners ask us as well!

We see this service as a public good, we want anyone to be able to donate effectively, no matter whether they are donating $10 or $10 million. We prefer to offer our service completely free of charge, but let people optionally tip us, or donate to us directly, if they find the work we do valuable. Right now, we have sufficient funding for our operations to support us until the end of the year, this will let us grow and attract top talent. If this product really does take off, we might play around with different funding models, including asking for an optional 'tip'.

As well as building EA Funds, we run local Effective Altruism community groups and conferences. Many of our members give back to us to support our activities because historically, we've been able to generate returns on their donation of between $10 and $100 for every dollar we spend on our operations. I should also note that there is some chance that donations to the EA Community Fund may be regranted to us if Nick Beckstead decides that we are a good giving opportunity. One way to support us it to allocate some of your donation to the EA Community Fund. We like this funding model because it incentivises us to focus on high impact activities. If the community evaluates the work we do positively, we'll get funding, and if not, we'll be forced to reassess our priorities.

Thanks for pointing that out - AMF is indeed one of the charities that our fund will support. GiveWell staff cost-effectiveness estimates vary widely[0], you can play around with their model, put in your own parameters and then see what figures you end up with.

To answer your second point, the state of evidence in the effective animal activism community is indeed poor. Our fund is likely to support programs which have a good track record or seem like promising bets. We don't want to be limited to projects which have rigorous data to support their activities, but we will encourage new projects to test their approaches, and collect data in order to prove their impact. The Animal Welfare Fund is managed by Lewis Bollard, Farm Animal Welfare Program Officer at the Open Philanthropy Project, Lewis has made grants in the past to organizations working on corporate cage-free campaigns, and clean meat initiatives. Some of these initiatives are inherently more speculative but have high expected value. You can read more about Lewis' grant history and his reasoning behind the grants on the Animal Welfare Fund page[1]. In terms of new research, Animal Charity Evaluators has created an Animal Advocacy Research Fund[2] which funds research into social and behavioural intervention cost-effectiveness. They've made a few small grants, and are looking to scale up this year. We're excited to see the animal welfare community become more evidence-based, though we also want to make sure we fund the activities that are most likely to help animals, given what we know right now.

[0] http://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/our-criteria/cost-effect... [1] https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds/animal-welfare [2] http://researchfund.animalcharityevaluators.org/

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Thanks, we completely agree!

Right now, the incentives in the charity sector are totally screwed. The charities which get the biggest are the ones with the best marketing, not the ones which have the most impact. That means that big charities often hide their mistakes and focus on maintaining a wholesome image.

In contrast, many of the organizations we work with regularly publish their mistakes and lessons. By sharing this kind of information, the whole sector can learn and improve. In particular, GiveWell (http://www.givewell.org/about/our-mistakes) has a great page listing their mistakes.

We've been especially impressed with charities like New Incentives, who realised that the original target population they were trying to serve (pregnant women with HIV) wasn't big enough, so they pivoted to focus on incentivizing mothers to vaccinate their children so that they could gather more evidence and have an even bigger impact.

With EA Funds, donors pick which problems they want their donation to solve, and we find the best giving opportunities. We will fund both new start-up style charities and larger more validated approaches. We will fund charities which have run failed programs in the past, provided that they have updated their approach.