🎁 NEW RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GIVING SEASON
Our recommended charities are highly reputable and remarkably effective. They have been rigorously evaluated and vetted by impact-focused charity evaluators — and those evaluators themselves have been investigated by our research team. We believe these charities represent some of the best opportunities to donate to, as they do substantially more good per dollar than average.
(in a charity)
Extreme effectiveness
Charities that demonstrably maximise the good they do with each dollar donated.
Research based
Charities that operate evidence-backed programs or that experts estimate have very high expected impact.
Third-party evaluated
Charities that have been vetted by the research of industry-leading charity evaluators.
(for the best charities)
Trusted, transparent, third-party evaluators play a critical role in our recommendations. And we don’t just rely on any evaluator — we research which evaluators can best help donors maximise their impact.
(to have the biggest impact)
Global health and wellbeing
Animal welfare
Reducing global catastrophic risks
Not all charities are equal. Your choice of where to donate can lead to significant differences in impact.
Our research team estimates that you can often do 100x more good with your dollar by donating to the best charities, and sometimes this multiplier is even greater.
If this comes as a surprise, you’re not alone. Many donors vastly underestimate the difference between “good” and “great” charities, which explains why many of the best charities to donate to remain underfunded.
Just like triaging in an emergency room, it’s important to be smart about what we work on when. If we don’t prioritise, we won’t help as well as we could have.
Donating $100 to one of the best charities can do more than giving $10,000 without reflection. Give to charities backed by the best available research and reasoning.
Automating your giving is easier than an ad-hoc approach. Create a personalised, recurring donation that automatically gives to multiple high-impact programs at once.
Best charities for global health and wellbeing (6)
Millions of people die each year from preventable and curable diseases, including approximately 15,000 children every single day. These deaths (and the considerable suffering caused by these types of disease) can be prevented with proven treatments and techniques — that’s why we’ve eradicated these diseases in higher-income countries. The organisations implementing these interventions in lower-income countries, however, are perpetually underfunded.
The best charities for global health and wellbeing tend to operate programmes with a strong evidence base behind them and a proven track record of success. They — quite literally — save and improve lives.
by GiveWell
The All Grants Fund seeks to improve global health and well-being by supporting the full range of GiveWell’s grantmaking to high-impact opportunities, including at organisations outside of its top charities.
by GiveWell
The Top Charities Fund seeks to improve global health and well-being by supporting the highest-priority funding needs among GiveWell's Top Charities, which are evidence-backed, high-impact, and highly cost-effective opportunities to save and improve the lives of people living in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention
The Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention program protects children from malaria by distributing preventative medication at times of high transmission.
Bednets To Prevent Malaria
AMF's bed net programs protect people from malaria by distributing and ensuring the use of long-lasting insecticidal bednets in regions with the highest burden of malaria cases.
Vitamin A Supplementation
Helen Keller Intl's Vitamin A Supplementation program Improves child health and survival rates by partnering with governments across Africa to deliver lifesaving vitamin A supplements and complementary activities to millions of children annually.
Childhood Immunisation Incentives
New Incentives improves childhood immunization rates in Nigeria by providing cash incentives to caregivers.
by Giving What We Can
The Global Health and Wellbeing Fund directs funding to highly effective organisations working to improve human wellbeing. Currently, the research team consults with GiveWell when determining where to allocate funds. See this fund's past grant rounds.
More options in global health and wellbeing
We've highlighted a few other supported programmes below. We don't currently include these programmes on our recommendations list, but think they may be interesting for donors to investigate further. The full list of supported programmes is available on our donation platform.
Best charities for animal welfare (2)
Despite widespread awareness of animal suffering, only about 3% of US charitable contributions support animals and the environment. Farmed animals are even more neglected, receiving only 0.03% of all US charitable donations. Yet farmed animals experience the overwhelming majority of human-inflicted animal suffering. They live lives filled with extreme physical and emotional distress — and in the US alone, over one million land animals are slaughtered every hour.
The best charities for animal welfare tend to operate programmes that are large in scale and tractable — they could reduce or eliminate the suffering of many, many animals through changes in policy, legislation, and consumer choices.
by Effective Altruism Funds
The Animal Welfare Fund aims to improve the wellbeing of nonhuman animals by making grants that focus on one or more best-in-class opportunities.
by Animal Charity Evaluators
The Movement Grants Program builds and strengthens the animal advocacy movement by funding a diverse range of promising projects around the globe.
by Giving What We Can
The Effective Animal Advocacy Fund directs funding to highly effective organisations working to improve animal welfare. Currently, the research team plans to allocate half of this fund to the Animal Welfare Fund (EA Funds) and half to ACE's Movement Grants program. The Giving What We Can research team reviews the allocation of this fund at least once per year and so the Fund may grant to other opportunities in future grantmaking rounds. See this fund's past grant rounds.
More options in animal welfare
We've highlighted a few other supported programmes below. We don't currently include these programmes on our recommendations list, but think they may be interesting for donors to investigate further. The full list of supported programmes is available on our donation platform.
Best charities for reducing global catastrophic risks (2)
Pandemics. Rogue AI. Nuclear catastrophe. Some of these threats may be more likely than we imagine — and with the wrong dice roll, could endanger the future of not only everyone alive today, but everyone who could ever live. Despite the enormous scale of these threats, research and initiatives to prevent them are still relatively limited. While interventions in this area aren’t always as tractable as in other areas, the threats are so large that it could be incredibly impactful to fund projects that give us a better chance at preventing them.
The best giving options for reducing global catastrophic risks are funds that support promising projects to improve nuclear and biosecurity, prevent pandemics, and promote beneficial AI. (Because the field is developing so rapidly and the impact of interventions is harder to measure than in other areas, the expertise and context of specialised grantmakers are even more valuable when supporting this type of work.)
by Longview Philanthropy
The Emerging Challenges Fund works to address global security risks from emerging technologies by supporting highly-effective organisations and projects.
by Effective Altruism Funds
The Long-Term Future Fund aims to positively influence the long-term trajectory of civilisation by making grants that address global catastrophic risks with an emphasis on potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence and pandemics.
by Giving What We Can
The Risks and Resilience Fund directs funding to highly effective organisations working to reduce global catastrophic risks. Currently, the research team plans to allocate half of the fund's budget to the Long-Term Future Fund (EA Funds) and half to the Emerging Challenges Fund (Longview Philanthropy). See this fund's past grant rounds.
More options in global catastrophic risks
We've highlighted a few other supported programmes below. We don't currently include these programmes on our recommendations list, but think they may be interesting for donors to investigate further. The full list of supported programmes is available on our donation platform.
A fund pools donations from many donors, which expert grantmakers then direct as effectively as possible — typically taking into account the current funding needs of high-impact charities working within the cause area the fund aims to support.
In other words, donating to a charitable fund is similar to using an actively managed investment fund instead of trying to pick individual stocks to invest in — but with charitable funds, you don’t typically pay a fee for the expertise you gain! Read more.
by Giving What We Can
The Global Health and Wellbeing Fund directs funding to highly effective organisations working to improve human wellbeing. Currently, the research team consults with GiveWell when determining where to allocate funds. See this fund's past grant rounds.
by Giving What We Can
The Effective Animal Advocacy Fund directs funding to highly effective organisations working to improve animal welfare. Currently, the research team plans to allocate half of this fund to the Animal Welfare Fund (EA Funds) and half to ACE's Movement Grants program. The Giving What We Can research team reviews the allocation of this fund at least once per year and so the Fund may grant to other opportunities in future grantmaking rounds. See this fund's past grant rounds.
by Giving What We Can
The Risks and Resilience Fund directs funding to highly effective organisations working to reduce global catastrophic risks. Currently, the research team plans to allocate half of the fund's budget to the Long-Term Future Fund (EA Funds) and half to the Emerging Challenges Fund (Longview Philanthropy). See this fund's past grant rounds.
by GiveWell
The All Grants Fund seeks to improve global health and well-being by supporting the full range of GiveWell’s grantmaking to high-impact opportunities, including at organisations outside of its top charities.
by GiveWell
The Top Charities Fund seeks to improve global health and well-being by supporting the highest-priority funding needs among GiveWell's Top Charities, which are evidence-backed, high-impact, and highly cost-effective opportunities to save and improve the lives of people living in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
by Effective Altruism Funds
The Animal Welfare Fund aims to improve the wellbeing of nonhuman animals by making grants that focus on one or more best-in-class opportunities.
by Longview Philanthropy
The Emerging Challenges Fund works to address global security risks from emerging technologies by supporting highly-effective organisations and projects.
by Effective Altruism Funds
The Long-Term Future Fund aims to positively influence the long-term trajectory of civilisation by making grants that address global catastrophic risks with an emphasis on potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence and pandemics.
Can’t decide? This bundle allows you to split your donation across all three of our GWWC-managed cause area funds.
We haven’t (yet) included areas like climate change or effective giving outreach/education on our recommendations list, but we think these areas (and the charities working in them) may be interesting for donors to investigate further. We've highlighted a selection below; you can see the full list on our donation platform.
by Founders Pledge
The Climate Change Fund aims to address climate change by supporting highly impactful, evidence-based solutions to the “triple challenge” of carbon emissions, air pollution, and energy poverty.
by Giving Green
The Giving Green Grantmaking Fund addresses climate change by supporting a research-backed selection of high-impact climate giving opportunities.
by Effective Altruism Funds
The Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund aims to increase the impact of projects that use the principles of effective altruism by increasing their access to talent, capital, and knowledge.
by AIM (Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program)
The Incubated Charities Fund fosters charitable impact by providing seed grant funding to new, promising charities graduating from Charity Entrepreneurship's Incubation Program.
Effective Giving Research & Advocacy
TLYCS aims to combat extreme poverty by connecting donors to highly effective giving opportunities, and inspiring and empowering philanthropic actions.
Let's address your questions
Step 1 of 2
The recommendations above have been thoroughly researched and vetted as exceptional opportunities for impact. However, our donation platform also supports a number of other programmes that broadly align with our principles — in other words, they are addressing a pressing problem and taking a reasonably promising approach. We’ve highlighted a few of these that we think may be of particular interest to donors in each cause area (see why), but you can also see all of our supported programmes here.
Co-founded in 2009 by moral philosophers Toby Ord and William MacAskill, Giving What We Can is a global community of effective givers and a resource hub for people who want to help. We curate a carefully vetted list of charity recommendations, offer resources and guides so you can make a bigger difference on the problems you care about, and work to change the norms around charitable giving to inspire people to give more, and more effectively.
We believe the scale of global income inequality is so vast that most people living in high-income countries have significant power to affect the lives of others. (See where you stack up here.) To that end, we also help people support high-impact charitable programmes and projects via our donation platform and invite you to join the 10,459 people who have taken a giving pledge.
Donors who plan to make substantial donations can benefit from working with a philanthropic advisor. Please reach out to us and we’ll connect you with an appropriate person or organisation.
Giving What We Can does not take any fees from donors who use our platform. We are independently funded to promote our mission of making giving effectively and significantly a cultural norm.
Giving What We Can does not take any fees from the charities and programmes listed on our platform. We are independently funded to promote our mission of making giving effectively and significantly a cultural norm.
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