Welcome to our April newsletter!
This edition contains information about:
- Our member motivations survey
- Upcoming events (including World Malaria Day)
- Ways you can help spread effective giving in your workplace
- Updates from our community
- News about our top priority cause areas
What motivates you to give more, and more effectively?
We would really appreciate our members answering a few short questions about their motivations. Their responses will help us select the key messages that we will use to promote our ideas.
~ 5 minutes, requires Google Account for optional uploads
Help Spread Effective Giving In Your Workplace
Giving What We Can and One for the World are seeking opportunities to talk about effective giving at workplaces. Using a 'lunch and learn' format, we host a one-hour talk to explain how we can assess cost effectiveness across multiple cause areas and charities. So far, we have delivered sessions at Microsoft, Bridgewater, Bain, Facebook, LinkedIn, Accenture and smaller SMEs and have raised over $85k in recurring donations.
If you think your colleagues might like to hear about the amazing opportunities of effective giving, please get in touch! Even in companies we have already contacted, there are always new teams, offices, and territories to explore --- so if you'd like to help us bring ever more people into effective giving, please email us and let us know.
Looking for more ways to spread effective giving? Check out our list of advocacy opportunities.
Attend An Online Event
Come along and meet other people who are committed to effectively using their resources to improve the world:
- World Malaria Day: Celebrate progress fighting malaria and discover the path ahead
Apr 25: 20:00 UTC - GWWC Online Meetup (Americas/Oceania): Myths & Misconceptions About Charity
May 1: 23:00 UTC - GWWC Online Meetup (Europe/Asia): Myths & Misconceptions About Charity
May 2: 09:30 UTC - Effective Giving Open Forum: Ask anything, discuss donations, meet effective givers
May 19: 20:00 UTC
If you have any questions or want to discuss your donation decisions with other members or our team, we recommend registering for an Open Forum event. See all our events.
News & Updates
Giving What We Can
We have recently published a series of new posts on myths, misconceptions, and common question about charity, including:
- Don't we need political action rather than charity?
- Don't we spend too much on foreign aid already?
- If I pay my taxes, why should I also give to charity?
- Can foreign aid and international charity make a difference?
- Does corruption in recipient governments interfere with foreign aid?
- Can an individual donor really make a difference?
We will be expanding these to cover more cause areas and other common questions. If you'd like to be part of the effort please email us and let us know.
Community
- Member Felix Werdermann shares how he's doing good as a consultant.
- Member Alexandra Heller shares some thoughts on giving: "The idea resonated: if you say you care about various causes in the world, then you should put your money on it."
- Vox published an interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, a recent blockchain billionaire and Giving What We Can member, on how effective altruism has influenced his donations.
- Canadian residents can now donate tax efficiently to Faunalytics, Mercy For Animals, New Incentives, Ought, and Wild Animal Initiative via RC Forward.
- 80,000 Hours wrote a post on how to identify your personal strengths.
- Lighten up your day with some April Fools' Day posts from the EA Forum including two posts announcing joke organisations: "Naming What We Can" and "Canning What We Give".
- The EA Forum are hosting an Effective Altruism wiki, this has been launched with some initial content and is using their existing tags system.
- 80,000 Hours just launched a new podcast feed called "Effective Altruism: An Introduction" which is a carefully chosen selection of ten episodes of The 80,000 Hours Podcast, with various new intros and outros to guide folks through them.
Donating & Philanthropy
- Research shows that the elite class mainly donate to things that provide themselves with some form of benefit.
- When it comes to charitable giving, people are more motivated by appeals to the good feelings they'll receive as a donor ("warm glow") --- and give 23% more in donations --- than by benefits for others ("pure altruism"), according to a new study based on an experiment of fundraising appeals in Alaska.
- Michael Dickens wrote a comparison of Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) providers.
Grantmakers and Evaluators
- EA Funds has appointed new fund managers and the Long-Term Future Fund has room for funding, right now.
- GiveWell have published research on two recent Incubation Grants to the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention and Vital Strategies (Alcohol Control Policy).
- Animal Charity Evaluators released an update to their Charities Quiz to match donors to their latest recommended charities.
Cause Areas
Animal Welfare
- A record $3.1 billion invested in alternative proteins in 2020 signals growing market momentum for sustainable proteins.
- Lewis Bollard wrote on the potential for consumer adoption of alternative proteins.
- James from Animal Rebellion UK wrote about how they averted 130,000 animal deaths (in expectation) with a volunteer campaign.
- The Humane League launched a new campaign action website to shed light on the treatment of chickens raised for meat and to call on major food companies like Dairy Queen, Wingstop, and Bob Evans to end these abuses.
- A new Good Food Institute initiative highlights key alternative protein industry challenges and potential solutions.
- A French city announced it would serve meatless school lunches and the backlash was swift.
Climate & Environment
- The Good Food Institute wrote on the potential environmental benefits of cultivated meat.
- China's coal-fired power plants drop below 50% power generation for the first time.
- Hannah Ritchie is looking at what proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food.
- Kelly Wanser was on the 80,000 Hours Podcast discussing whether to deliberately intervene in the climate.
- In "What should coal communities do when power plants shut down?" Vox's Lili Pike covers three big lessons from Germany's transition off of coal power.
Global Health & Development
- The Gates Foundation wrote on why they are giving $250,000,000 to fight the pandemic.
- A post from JPAL argues that "Growth is not enough."
- The Centre for Global Development published a post on "Allocating Global Aid to Maximize Utility."
- Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's first ever tweet has been sold for the equivalent of $2,900,000 and he is planning to donate all of it to GiveDirectly.
- El Salvador has become the first country in Central America to be certified malaria-free.
- The predicted doubling of malaria deaths in Africa due to COVID-19 haven't occurred.
- Hepatitis C prevalence in Egypt dropped from 7% to 2% since 2018.
- Evidence Action chronicles their efforts to bring back school-based deworming to Kenya during COVID-19.
Improving Institutions
- Jason Crawford wrote a post looking at ways of ending technological stagnation.
- Ben Garfinkel published the post "Is Democracy a Fad?"
- Fastgrants is "changing how we fund science."
Long-Term Future, Existential Risks, & Emerging Technologies
- Toby Ord in The Guardian asks governments to improve their resilience to prevent catastrophes.
- Joel Carlsmith wrote a post "On future people, looking back at 21st century longtermism."
- Haydn Belfield wrote a response to "The Case Against Longtermism."
- Nina Schick writes on disinformation and the rise of synthetic media.
Useful Links
- Review our giving recommendations.
- Report your donations with your pledge dashboard.
- Join other members in the Giving What We Can Community Facebook group.
- Find more ways to get involved with Giving What We Can and effective altruism.
- Discuss effective giving and effective altruism on the EA Forum.
You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube and subscribe to the EA Newsletter for more news and articles.
Do you have questions about the pledge, Giving What We Can, or effective altruism in general? Check out our FAQ page, or contact us directly.