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Julian Hazell

Effective giving is a long-term endeavour, not one that you have to maximise and optimise for over the course of a year. It shouldn’t be stressful or anxiety-inducing, and it should be something you can see yourself doing over the course of your life.

It's perfectly okay to be an imperfect effective altruist

For basically my entire life, I didn’t think I could make much of an impact on the world’s most pressing problems. That changed when I read Peter Singer’s 

In short, Singer argues that we are morally obligated to help others if we can do so without significant sacrifice on our own part. He illustrates this through his “drowning child” thought experiment, which asks: would you wade into a shallow pond of water to save a drowning child if doing so would ruin your clothes? The vast majority of us say yes, which leads to another question: why aren’t we as willing to sacrifice our resources to save lives that aren’t in front of us?

Singer stresses that it doesn’t matter if the child is in front of us — if we can save lives for comparatively little cost (the value of the clothes we are wearing, for example), why don’t we? Why are we motivated to be altruistic for the drowning child in front of us, but not the ones we don’t see?

“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” — Peter Singer

The simplicity, effectiveness, and elegance of the core argument made complete sense to me. Contrary to my previous belief that I was only a small fish in a big ocean, it turns out I can positively impact others’ lives, oftentimes quite substantially. There are drowning children out there (metaphorically, in this case), and I have an obligation to help them. Better yet, I’m in a good position to help a lot of drowning children over the course of my life if I follow the evidence and use careful reasoning. That’s both exciting and nerve-wracking.

The drowning child thought experiment was powerful enough to make me buy into the 

 project. Actually, I didn’t just buy in — I felt infused with a resounding sense of motivation that I can make a difference.

But that motivation soon turned into anxiety as I began grappling with the sorts of tricky philosophical and empirical questions that come with putting these feelings of obligation and fuzzy ideas into practice.

“Now, what can I do to help as many people as possible?”

, I would think to myself. Anything less would mean that someone might not ‌live a happy life. This sort of practical introspection quickly morphed into something like, 

“Holy s**t, what should I be doing to help?”

Any action I thought about taking was quickly picked apart by a feeling of uncertainty that bordered on neuroticism. “What if this action isn’t going to maximise the amount of good I do?”, I would ask.

These kinds of questions wouldn’t be followed by answers; they’d instead be followed by even more questions. Yikes.

What is the most good? How much should I donate? What if donating elsewhere would increase my impact? Can I really justify buying this sandwich if I could spend it on a mosquito net instead? Have I really earned any of the things I own?

What began as a force for motivation started turning into a pipeline of negativity — one that would take a healthy degree of uncertainty as an input, and spit out an ever-encroaching feeling that I was failing the project of effective altruism as an output.

That was the wrong mindset, and I’ve since come to terms with the fact that I’m a human who is trying to do the best I can, not some sort of omniscient maximiser from an economics model. This realisation has made me much happier and significantly more motivated to continue doing good in the world.

I’m writing this piece because I don’t want you to feel the anxiety I felt. I want to help you to feel comfortable with uncertainty, especially if you’re new to effective altruism.

Here’s why it’s perfectly okay to be an imperfect effective altruist.

Effective altruism is, almost by definition, complicated. If it wasn’t, we’d skip the complex analysis because we’d already know exactly what to do. But in practice, ‌it can be really hard to find the best ways to use our resources to help others the most.

We really don’t have this effective altruism thing entirely figured out, contrary to the impression that newcomers might have. There are a lot of unanswered questions, incomplete analyses, tough considerations, and noisiness involved with many of the things effective altruists care about. It’s important to remember that effective altruism is carried out by humans, not robots — and we are flawed reasoners who must navigate incomplete information, social norms, personal desires, cognitive biases, and finite resources.

But that’s okay. If you feel uncomfortable with this uncertainty, I encourage you to introduce simplicity wherever you can. I’ll describe a few practical rules of thumb below to help you get started. These can help with the complex considerations that effective altruism often demands, and can make you feel better about the actions you’re taking to satisfy them. This can often be especially true if you’ve only recently discovered effective altruism.

Simplifying rules of thumb can be wrong, but are often still useful

importance, tractability, and neglectedness (ITN) framework

, which helps us figure out the kinds of problems we should work on. Effective altruism has changed in the last few years, but a few things have stayed relatively constant. The ITN framework is a key example. Like most other models, the ITN framework is 

 and oversimplified. Yet despite this, it has stayed relevant over the past decade as ideas within the effective altruism community have ebbed and flowed. Why? My best guess is that even though the ITN framework is imperfect, it still broadly points us in the right direction in many circumstances. The framework’s ability to direct the user at a quick-yet-still-useful answer allows us to forgive its shortcomings, hence why it is still one of the primary tools in the effective altruism toolkit.

So yes, maybe there is another tool out there that would enable you to do a little bit more good. But maybe it would require days of thinking, 10 spreadsheets, and 20 cups of coffee to work through, and even then you might still have a lingering sense of uncertainty. Crucially, if these kinds of barriers would stand in the way of you actually taking action, the ITN framework would be the clear winner.

You can adopt other rules of thumb that, much like the ITN framework, can increase your impact, make your life easier, and help you deal with the anxiety that you aren’t making the absolute perfect choice.

If you’re new to effective giving — or even if you’re not, but you value keeping your life as simple as can be — a good simplifying rule would be to stick closely to the recommendations of charity evaluators like 

. These organisations hire smart people to spend thousands of hours working through the inner complexities of evaluating charity effectiveness, something that an individual would have difficulty doing alone. You can take advantage of that work (at no cost to yourself) by following their recommendations.

 that hire expert grantmakers to disperse donations. Think of this like hiring your own personal impact advisor, except for free.

And also note that you can always change where you donate later, especially as your knowledge, key considerations, and beliefs change. These options are good places to start in the meantime.

If you’re not sure about how much you should donate, start by picking a simple rule and sticking with it.

If the “simple” approach helps you get started with some positive action in the first place, then you should strongly consider acting on it. You can build from there and progressively refine your decision making in the long run‌.

Here are some other rules of thumb you might find helpful (but by all means, feel free to create your own):

 of your choice for whenever a paycheque hits your bank account.

Carve out a specific time period each year (e.g., three days) to research charities to support, and then stick with the charities you choose for the rest of the year.

Find an ‘effective giving buddy’ you can chat with once a month about your giving progress and any uncertainties you might be having.

Write down your best guess of your donation’s impact (e.g., protect 100 people from malaria for two years), and review this periodically to be reminded of your impact.

If you feel overwhelmed about the sheer number of things to read about effective altruism, avoid information overload by creating a habit of only reading one or two blog posts, articles, or reports per week. This adds up to a lot in the long term!

Remember, you are guaranteed to have zero impact if you donate nothing out of fear of failing to choose the absolute best option. But choosing a possibly-imperfect-yet-entirely-reasonable starting point (e.g., donating 5% of your income to GiveWell’s recommended charities) is an excellent way to do good in the world. We can’t ever be entirely sure whatever we’re doing is maximising some abstract goal, so we should at least start somewhere.

Speaking of which, we often can’t maximise our goals — but that’s okay!

We can’t actually maximise, but we can try our best

Effective altruists often use maximising language like “the most good you can do” or “maximising the amount of good you can do.” But this can be difficult to practically implement when we’re uncertain about different options. If effective altruism is about trying to do as much good as possible, are we ‘failing’ if we fall short of this goal?

I don’t think so. We will pretty much never be able to calculate which actions will maximise the amount of good we do, but aiming in a promising direction seems like a good rule of thumb. As someone who cares about effectiveness, it can be hard to feel ‌as if you’re leaving impact on the table. But think of effective altruism as a long game — one that you should do sustainably and in a way that can inspire others.

The world is messy and confusing, so embrace uncertainty and do your best. You’ll have zero impact if you do nothing, so start by doing something that will get you on the path to maximising your impact (e.g., donate 1% of your income to our 

) and then adjust as time goes on. I wager that you’ll feel pretty good about how much you’re helping others if you start at as little as 1%. Then, as you increase that number to 5%, and then 10%, you’ll see why effective giving can feel so rewarding and meaningful.

Giving is a long-term endeavour, not one that you have to maximise and optimise for over the course of a year. It shouldn’t be stressful or anxiety-inducing, and it should be something you can see yourself doing over the course of your life. Most importantly, you should aim to set an example for people who are on the fence by demonstrating that giving significantly and effectively is not just compatible with living a happy and fulfilling life, but is integral to it. If giving is making you stressed out or anxious, others might not want to follow your lead, so remember to take care of yourself.

At the end of the day, we’re imperfect beings who would like to live in a perfect world. That's fine — we can still make a substantial amount of progress by noticing the uncertainty and complexity around us, and acting anyway.

Shakeel Hashim

Just as there are multiple ways to invest effectively, there are also multiple ways to give effectively. This article covers one way, called "hits-based giving", that approaches charity like a venture capitalist approaches investing in startups.

Donating like a startup investor: Hits-based giving, explained

Warren Buffett and John Doerr are two of the most successful investors in the world. But they made their money very differently. Buffett, for the most part, made his money through "value" investing: he found solid, reliable companies that he thought were undervalued, put money into them, and watched that money go up.

Doerr, a venture capitalist, took a very different approach. He put his cash into incredibly risky startups like Google, Amazon, and Twitter. All those ventures had a very high likelihood of failure (the vast majority of startups fail, after all), and a tiny chance of becoming massive successes — which is, of course, what happened.

There are multiple ways to give effectively

Just as there are multiple ways to invest effectively, there are also multiple ways to give effectively. Some donors take a Buffett-style approach, donating to charities with a track-record of success and a high probability of helping people. Those people might donate to 

 top charities, funding evidence-backed interventions like 

Other donors choose to donate to opportunities where, although success isn't guaranteed, the potential impact they might have if they do succeed is so great that they think it's worth trying. To understand this, we can use the statistical concept of “expected value”, which looks at something’s potential outcomes and the likelihood of each of those outcomes happening to calculate an overall predicted value.

An example will help make this clear. Imagine someone tells you that if a coin lands on heads, you’ll get $100, but if it lands on tails you’ll get nothing. There’s a 50% chance of each outcome occurring, so the expected value of the coin flip is $100 * 50% = $50. This is a really helpful way of evaluating charities, each of which has different potential outcomes and different likelihoods of achieving those outcomes.

Let's say there are two charities, Alpha and Beta. Alpha has a 100% chance of helping 1,000 people, so its "expected value" is 1,000 * 100% = 1,000. Beta, meanwhile, has a 1% chance of helping 1,000,000 people, so its expected value is 10,000. Donors that prefer certainty might donate to Alpha. But to others, Beta’s much higher expected value makes it a better donation opportunity.

This startup-like approach to donating has been dubbed "

", a term coined by Open Philanthropy, a foundation aiming to give away its money as effectively as possible. (Full disclosure: Open Philanthropy provides funding for Giving What We Can.) But hits-based giving isn’t a new idea: there are historical examples of it working really well.

One example comes from the Rockefeller Foundation, a charitable foundation established by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, which invested in research on how to improve agricultural productivity. One of its employees, plant pathologist Norman Borlaug, ended up developing the high-yielding wheat strains that fuelled the "Green Revolution". By increasing agricultural productivity, Borlaug’s work helped to massively increase the amount of food produced in the world, bringing millions out of hunger. He is now credited with 

 for his work — which other donors might have deemed too risky to fund. But because Rockefeller was willing to take the risk, a huge number of people were helped.

Rockefeller isn’t the only example of successful hits-based giving. Katharine McCormick, another wealthy philanthropist, was the sole funder of research that led to the development of the birth control pill, which has improved women’s lives all over the world. Without McCormick willing to gamble on the research, we might never have had the pill. It's possible that something similar could happen again. Research into 

 might not pay off, but if it does, it could help stop the next pandemic. 

 could turn out to be infeasible, but it could also eradicate malaria.

Hits-based giving doesn't just involve throwing money at every promising-looking opportunity, though. Instead, calculated risks need to be taken. Because most of the projects you fund will likely fail, you have to make sure that the ones that do succeed will succeed on a gigantic scale, to make up for all the losses you've incurred elsewhere. Looking at an intervention's 

importance, neglectedness and tractability

 is a really helpful way of assessing its potential for impact, and it's why Giving What We Can and many others think about these factors when advising donors how to maximise their impact.

It can also help to diversify your portfolio of grants. Startup investors rarely invest in just one or two companies. Instead, they spread their money across dozens or even hundreds of opportunities. When you're dealing with a low likelihood of success for each opportunity, increasing the number of opportunities increases your overall chance of success. The same is true for hits-based giving: Open Philanthropy says it "might expect just one or two 'hits' from our portfolio to carry the whole". Accordingly, it's 

Hits-based giving involves retraining your brain a bit, too. As 

 about startups, "if a good idea were obviously good, someone else would already have done it. So the most successful founders tend to work on ideas that few beside them realise are good." The same can be true for charities. Trying not to "defer to expert opinion or conventional wisdom" is one way to ensure you're not accidentally missing promising opportunities, Open Philanthropy advises. They do caution, though, that research is important — you should be informed of the conventional wisdom, even if you don't agree.

Lastly, you have to be willing to let go of the need for strong evidence. Some approaches to charity make use of 

, which assess whether interventions are really having the desired impact, and to what degree. That approach can be important in making sure that money goes to the places where it can do the most good. But many promising-looking interventions don't have much evidence backing them up, because they're too experimental or new to have established an evidence base yet. And for certain interventions, it’s almost impossible to conduct research to see if they’ll work. In fact, Open Philanthropy points out that "most past cases of philanthropic “hits” were not evidence-backed in the sense of having strong evidence directly predicting success." To be a hits-based donor, you have to be willing to take a gamble on something — an informed gamble, but a gamble all the same.

Ways to adopt the hits-based giving approach

If all this sounds appealing, you're in luck: there are ways you can adopt a hits-based giving approach. Charity Entrepreneurship, for instance, incubates new charities to solve big problems, and 

 is another way to help — much of this money ends up funding experimental projects trying to safeguard the future of humanity. Who knows: you might even help save billions of lives by funding the next Norman Bourlag.

스타트업 투자자처럼 기부하기: 히트 기반 기부란 무엇인가

세상에서 가장 성공한 투자자로 손꼽히는 워렌 버핏(Warren Buffett)과 존 도어(John Doerr)는 흥미롭게도 각기 다른 방식으로 최고의 부호 자리에 올랐다. 우선 워렌 버핏은 “가치”투자로 수익을 얻었다. 내실이 탄탄하고 신뢰할 만하지만 저평가된 기업을 찾아 투자하고 투자금이 회수되기를 기다렸다.

반면 벤처캐피탈리스트인 존 도어는 다른 방식을 취했다. 구글, 아마존, 트위터와 같은 고위험 스타트업에 투자한 것이다. 당시 벤처기업이던 이 기업에 투자할 경후 실패할 확률이 무척 높았던 반면 대성공을 거둘 확률은 매우 희박했다. 사실상 대부분의 스타트업이 실패하지 않는가? 하지만 이 기업들은 다행히도 모두 대박을 터뜨렸다.

다양한 성공투자 비법이 존재하는 만큼

 효율적 기부 방식 역시 다양하다. 워렌 버핏의 방식처럼 기부할 수도 있다. 오랫동안 성공적인 자선 사업을 이끌어 와서 사람들에게 도움을 줄 확률이 큰 자선단체에 기부하는 것이다. 이런 방식을 선호하는 사람들은 

 등 실증적 정보에 입각한 사업에 끌릴 것이다.

이와 달리 성공확률은 낮아도 성공을 할 경우 그 잠재 영향력이 무척 크기 때문에 시도해 볼만한 경우가 있다. 이 방식에 대한 이해를 돕고자 “기대 가치”라는 통계학적 개념을 빌려와 설명하고자 한다. 여기서 기대 가치란 어떠한 일의 여러 잠정적 결과와 각 결과로 이어질 확률을 계산하여 그 가치를 수치화한 결과다.

구체적인 예시를 들어보자. 동전을 던져 앞면이 나올 경우 10만원을 받고, 뒷면이 나올 경우 아무 것도 받지 못한다고 가정해보자. 두 결과가 나올 확률은 각각 50%이므로 동전을 던지는 행위의 기대 가치는 10만원 X 50% = 5만원이다. 여러 자선단체들이 각기 다른 결과를 낼 것이고 각 결과로 이어질 확률이 다르기에 이러한 산정 방식은 여러 자선단체를 평가하는데 유용한 도구가 될 수 있다.

두 자선단체 ㄱ과 ㄴ이 있다고 가정해보자. ㄱ 단체는 1,000명을 도울 확률이 100%기 때문에 기대 가치는 1,000 X 100% = 1,000인 반면 ㄴ 단체는 100만명을 도울 확률이 1%기 때문에 기대 가치는 1,000,000 X 1% =10,000이다. 확실한 결과를 선호하는 사람들은 ㄱ 단체에 기부할 것이다. 하지만 그렇지 않은 이들에게는 기대 가치가 훨씬 높은 ㄴ 단체가 더 나은 기부 기회로 보일 수 있다.

가장 효율적인 방법으로 기부하는 것을 목표로 두는 오픈 필란트로피(Open Philanthropy) 재단은 이렇듯 스타트업에 투자하는 것과 동일한 방식의 기부 형태를 “

”라고 부른다. (현재 오픈 필란트로피는 기빙 왓 위 캔에 자금 지원을 하는 단체다.) 그런데 사실 히트 기반 기부는 새로운 개념이 아닌데, 역사 속에서도 히트 기반 기부의 성공 사례를 찾아볼 수 있다.

역사로 살펴보는 히트 기반 기부

한 가지 사례로 석유 재벌 존 D. 록펠러(John D. Rockefeller)가 설립한 록펠러 재단(Rockefeller Foundation)을 들 수 있다. 농업 생산성 증진을 위한 연구에 투자했던 록펠러 재단의 직원이었던 식물 병리학자 노먼 볼로그(Norman Borlaug)는 고수확 밀 품종 개발에 성공하게 되고, 이는 녹색 혁명에 불을 지피는 계기가 되었다. 농업 생산성 증진에 기여한 볼로그는 세계 식량 생산량 증진에도 혁혁한 공을 세워 수백만 명을 기아로부터 살려냈다. 

10억 명 이상의 생명을 살린 공로

까지 수상했다. 당시 많은 사람들이 위험성을 우려하여 기부하지 않았을 분야에 록펠러는 과감한 투자를 했고 그 결과 많은 사람들이 도움을 받게 된 것이다.

성공적으로 히트 기반 기부를 한 사람은 록펠러 말고도 더 있다. 역시 부유한 자선가인 캐서린 맥코믹(Katharine McCormick)이 단독적으로 지원에 나섰던 연구의 경우 훗날 전 세계 많은 여성들의 삶의 질을 개선하는 데 기여하게 되었다. 캐서린 맥코믹이 도박하듯 이 연구를 지원하지 않았더라면 피임약은 개발되지 않았을 수도 있다. 이와 유사한 일이 다음에 또 생길지도 모를 일이다. 

를 통해 성과를 얻지 못할 수도 있지만 만약 성공을 거두게 될 경우엔 다음에 있을 팬데믹을 예방하는 데 도움이 될 수도 있다. 

모기의 유전자를 변형하는 연구

는 당장 효용성이 없을지도 모르지만 궁극적으로는 이것이 말라리아를 퇴치하는 방법일 수도 있다.

그렇다고 해서 조금의 가능성에 혹해서 괜찮아 보이는 사업에 무조건 지원하라는 것은 아니다. 반드시 사업 리스크를 신중히 고려한 뒤 뛰어들어야 한다. 지원하는 사업 대부분이 실패로 끝날 공산이 크기에 성공할 사업이라면 소위 히트를 크게 쳐야 할 것이다. 그렇게 해야만 다른 사업으로 입은 손해를 만회할 수 있을 것이다. 자선 

사업의 중요성, 방치도, 해결 용이성

을 면밀히 살핀다면 그 사업의 잠재적 영향력을 가늠해볼 수 있기 때문에 기빙 왓 위 캔을 포함한 많은 단체들은 최대한 영향력을 발휘하는 방향으로 기부 활동이 이루어지도록 조언하기 위해 이러한 요인들을 검토하고 있다.

이러한 방법을 활용해 기부 포트폴리오 다양화도 가능하다. 스타트업 투자자들이 기업 한두 군데에만 투자하는 경우는 극히 드물다. 열 군데에서 많게는 백 군데 가량의 기업에 분산 투자하는 경우가 많다. 각 투자처에 대한 성공 확률이 낮다면 투자처 수를 늘리는 것이 그 확률을 높이는 방법이 될 것이다. 히트 기반 기부도 동일한 원리로 이루어진다. “성공하는 사업 한두 군데가 포트폴리오 전체를 살리게 될 수도 있다”고 말하는 오픈 필란트로피는 이런 이유로 여러 단체에 

히트 기반 기부에 대한 마음가짐

히트 기반 기부를 하기 위해서는 발상의 전환도 필요하다. 

은 스타트업에 관해 “만약 어떤 아이디어가 명확하게 좋아보인다면 다른 누군가가 이미 시도했을 것이다. 크게 성공한 창업자들은 남들은 꿈에도 생각 못할 아이디어를 기반으로 삼는 경우가 많다”고 말한다. 자선 활동도 마찬가지다. 오픈 필란트로피는 “전문가의 조언이나 기존의 방식을 무조건적으로 따르려고” 하지 않아야 좋은 기부의 기회를 잡을 수 있다고 조언한다. 하지만 이와 함께 연구의 중요성 역시 강조하고 있는데, 반드시 기존 방식에 동의하지 않더라도 이를 잘 숙지하는 것이 매우 중요하기 때문일테다.

마지막으로 명확한 근거가 반드시 있어야 한다는 생각은 내려놓을 준비가 되어야 한다. 자선 사업이 기대하는 결과를 어느 정도 

낼 수 있는지를 평가하기 위해 통제된 시험

을 무작위로 실시하는 경우도 있다. 이런 접근법은 선한 영향력을 가장 많이 미칠 수 있는 곳으로 자금을 보내는 데에 있어 중요할 수 있다. 하지만 가장 유망한 사업의 경우 이를 뒷받침해줄 실증적 자료가 많지 않다. 여전히 실험 단계거나 아직 근거가 충분히 쌓이지 않은 상태인 경우가 다반사다. 심지어 효과에 대한 사전 실증작업이 사실상 불가능한 사업도 있다. 오픈 필란트로피는 “되돌아보면 대부분의 ‘히트를 친’ 자선 사업들은 그 성공을 예견해준 탄탄한 근거자료가 없었다”고 말한다. 히트 기반 기부를 하기 위해서는 도박처럼 모험적인 결정을 할 의향이 있어야 한다. 물론 실질적인 정보를 바탕으로 한들 근본적으로는 여전히 도박에 가까운 일임에는 분명하다.

히트 기반 기부 방식이 매력적으로 다가온다면 여기 전해주고픈 희소식이 있다. 바로 히트를 기반으로 기부할 수 있는 방법은 다양하다는 사실이다. 일례로 채리티 앙트레프레너십(Charity Entrepreneurship)은 중대한 문제들을 해결하기 위해 신규 자선단체를 인큐베이팅하고 있는데, 이러한 환경에서 성장 중인 비영리 스타트업에 누구나 

. 장기 지원 기금에 기부하는 방법도 있다. 이러한 기금은 대부분 

인류의 미래를 지키기 위한 실험적 사업

을 지원하는 데에 쓰인다. 어쩌면 제2의 노먼 볼로그를 지원해서 수십억 명을 살리는 일에 기여하게 될지도 모를 일이다.

다양한 성공투자 비법이 존재하는 만큼 효율적 기부 방식 역시 다양하다. 워렌 버핏의 방식처럼 기부할 수도 있다. 오랫동안 성공적인 자선 사업을 이끌어 와서 사람들에게 도움을 줄 확률이 큰 자선단체에 기부하는 것이다... 이와 달리 성공확률은 낮아도 성공을 할 경우 그 잠재 영향력이 무척 크기 때문에 시도해 볼만한 경우가 있다.

Michael Townsend

Small donors can have a significant impact by donating to charities that safeguard the long-term future. 

The value of small donations from a longtermist perspective

Despite there being a significant amount of funders already in the space, Researcher Michael Townsend argues small donors can have a significant impact by donating to charities that safeguard the long-term future.

 --- I'm quite confident about my central claim that small donors motivated by longtermism can have a significant impact through their donations. I aimed to highlight the peripheral claims I am less confident about.

 --- I wrote this in my capacity as a researcher at Giving What We Can; though I primarily aimed to articulate my own view, this post also conveys the organisation's current best guesses regarding the value of longtermist donations.

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