Welcome to our September Newsletter!
A few big updates from the Giving What We Can community this month:
- Peter Singer won the 2021 Berggruen Prize for ideas that "profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world" -- here's how he's spending the $1m prize.
- Following the release of the Future Proof report, Toby Ord (our co-founder) was referenced in a speech by Boris Johnson to the United Nations about climate change and what we owe to our descendants.
- We released a new guide to talking about effective altruism, effective giving, and Giving What We Can.
- We launched a podcast which features interviews (guests so far include Lucia Coulter, Joshua Greene, Joshua Ross & Luke Freeman), lessons about effective giving, and member stories.
- We released new videos: 'Three big problems that need your support' and 'Can money buy happiness? A review of new data'.
- We've been releasing our new myths and misconception infographics on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (thanks to Taylor Jones for his work on these).
We hope you enjoy the rest of this newsletter, which covers our upcoming online events, the latest from the effective altruism community, and news and updates about relevant cause areas.
This year, for my birthday, I decided to take the @givingwhatwecan pledge to donate 10% of my income each year to whichever organisations do the most good. A 🧵on why I'm giving, why I didn't start sooner, and where I'm donating to. 1/13
— Dr Michael Plant (@MichaelDPlant) September 16, 2021
Thanks to Dr. Michael Plant for sharing your commitment on Twitter!
Happy birthday and welcome to our community!
Attend An Online Event
Come along and meet other people who are committed to effectively using their resources to improve the world:
- GWWC Online Meetup (Americas/Oceania):
Social meetup, 1-on-1s with members
October 2: 23:00 UTC - GWWC Online Meetup (Europe/Asia):
Social meetup, 1-on-1s with members
October 3: 09:30 UTC - Effective Giving Open Forum:
Ask anything, discuss donations, meet effective givers
October 21: 09:00 UTC - EA Global London
October 29-31 - EAGxPrague
December 3-5
If you have any questions or want to discuss your donation decisions with other members or our team, we recommend coming along to an Open Forum event. See our events page to register.
News & Updates
Effective altruism community
- The Centre For Effective Altruism (CEA) is hiring a product manager for effectivealtruism.org.
- Canva founders have announced their plans to "do the most good" with the bulk of their wealth.
- Open Philanthropy are funding scholarships for altruistically-minded international students applying to top US/UK universities.
- EA Impact CoLabs, an EA projects platform to connect projects and volunteers, has just launched!
- 'Advice for a young idealist: Find a lonely cause' --- Dylan Matthews, Vox.
- 'Snapshot of a career choice 10 years ago' --- Julia Wise, CEA.
- 'Charitable Giving With Crytpo In the US' by Aaron Hamlin.
Cause areas
Animal welfare
- Good Food Institute (GFI) has granted $5 million to boost research into alternative proteins.
- EA Animal Welfare Fund is requesting proposals for scoping research/projects focused on neglected yet large-scale animal populations.
- 'Cultured meat predictions were overly optimistic' --- Neil Dullaghan, Rethink Priorities.
- Faunalytics published new research to support farmed animal protection in China.
Global health and development:
- GiveWell published an update about its research on public health regulation and recently recommended an $8 million grant to Pure Earth for its work to reduce lead exposure in low-and middle-income countries.
- GiveDirectly's work on cash transfers within the US helped them get more money to international recipients.
- The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) has agreed to fund 3.1 million nets for distribution in Guinea.
- Dr. Lucia Coulter was interviewed about the Lead Exposure Elimination Project on the Mayo Clinic Innovation Exchange.
- Leaded gasoline for cars has finally been phased out worldwide --- Kelsey Piper, Vox.
Long-term future
- 'We've been radically underestimating the true cost of our carbon footprint' --- Sigal Samuel, Vox.
- Holden Karnofsky was interviewed on the 80,000 Hours Podcast and has also released many more posts on Cold Takes about the long-term future, including: 'The Most Important Century (in a nutshell)' and 'AI Timelines: Where the Arguments, and the "Experts," Stand'.
- 'Major UN report discusses existential risk and future generations' --- summary by Fin Moorhouse & Avital Balwit.
- 'What we learned from a year incubating longtermist entrepreneurship' --- Jade Leung, Ben Clifford, and Rebecca Kagan.
- 'A synthetic pandemic could be far, far worse than Covid-19' --- Abraar Karan and Stephen Luby.
- 'Why I am probably not a longtermist' --- Denise Melchin.
- How to solve every global crisis' --- Video by MinuteEarth with Future of Life Institute.
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Check out our new myth infographics on Instagram
Help Spread Effective Giving
A great way to multiply your impact is to tell people about effective giving. Here are just a few ways you can help advocate for effective giving:
- Update your profile picture on Facebook to include our photo frame.
- Invite people to our events, especially our Pledge Drive during December and January.
- Share our recommended videos, books, podcasts, and essays.
Spreading effective ideas and growing our community helps us make progress on some of the world's most pressing problems. Importantly, it also enriches the lives of the givers. It can take courage, but it's worth it!
Thank you!
Thanks again for taking the time to read our newsletter! As always, here are some useful links to help you maximise your charitable impact:
- Review our giving recommendations.
- Report your donations with your pledge dashboard.
- Share our ideas to help grow our community and multiply your impact.
- Join other members in the Giving What We Can community Facebook or LinkedIn groups.
- 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, YouTube, or TikTok, 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.
Until next time, keep on doing good!