Hello and welcome to our May Newsletter!
This month we're experimenting with a video summary of our newsletter. Watch it and tell us whether you think we should continue with this format in the future via a 30 second survey!
Until next time, keep doing good!
-Luke Freeman & the rest of the Giving What We Can team.
Video text
Hi and welcome to our May newsletter and updates!
This month we're trying out a new video and audio introduction to our newsletter, where we give you the highlights and most important news! You'll find links to everything we talk about below.
Let us know what you think - and whether we should continue this for the coming months.
Let's dive right in
At Giving What We Can we have some exciting news - we have formally taken over the EA funds donation platform while EA Funds will continue to do the grantmaking activities. So if you are looking to make donations to effective charities in the US, UK or Netherlands you can now visit donate.givingwhatwecan.org.
We have just released a new YouTube video on Global Health and Development. We recommend you check it out if you're interested in this area and share it with your friends who might benefit from hearing about effective giving in global health and development.
The Giving What We Can staff will be joining our monthly meet ups this month and we'd love to say hi and get to know you if you're available!
In other news:
GiveDirectly published an article on why they didn't launch to support Ukrainians affected by the war. They saw the opportunity as impactful but ultimately didn't have the capacity to launch the program without deprioritising others. Instead, they chose to continue work on launching a program in Yemen, which the UN has called "the world's worst humanitarian crisis" and where over 22 million people need emergency aid.
Charity Entrepreneurship has launched career coaching for impact oriented entrepreneurs, so if you're interested in working in or starting an effective organisation, this could be a great opportunity for you!
A new article from Vox's Future Perfect column explains that a fridge in the US consumes more energy in a year than an individual in many countries in order to demonstrate global energy inequity.
And finally, Will MacAskill, co-founder of Giving What We Can was recently on the 80,000 Hours podcast where he discussed balancing frugality with ambition, whether you need longtermism, and mental health under pressure with host Rob Wiblin.
That's all for now - there are many more articles linked in the newsletter and don't forget to let us know what you think of this format!
Until next time, keep on doing good!
Attend An Event
Meetups
Come meet the Giving What We Can staff as well as other community members in our meet up this month! This is a great opportunity to ask the staff to show you their pets, about working at Giving What We Can or anything else on your mind.
June Meetup (Americas/Oceania)
- Jun 4: 22:00 UTC (New York: Sat 6:00 pm, Sydney: Sun 8:00 am)
- RSVP via facebook
- Register
June Meetup (Europe/Asia)
- Jun 5: 09:30 UTC (London: Sun 10:30 am, Mumbai: Sun 3:00 pm, Singapore: Sun 5:30 pm)
- RSVP via facebook
- Register
Open Forum
Our open forum is an event where you can come along with questions about effective giving or just come along to meet others interested in effective giving. Alternates between different timezones each month.
June Open Forum (Americas/Oceania)
- Jun 16: 23:00 UTC (Sydney 9:00 am, New York 7:00 pm, San Francisco 4:00 pm)
- RSVP via facebook
- Register
News & Updates
Effective altruism community
- Giving What We Can has formally taken over the EA Funds donation platform, so if you are looking to make donations to effective charities in the US, UK or Netherlands you can now visit donate.givingwhatwecan.org. Read more about the changes in our announcement here.
- We are currently seeking expressions of interest for a senior researcher and welcome any general expressions of interest.
- We shared GWWC member Sonia Albrecht's member story
- Will MacAskill on balancing frugality with ambition, whether you need longtermism, and mental health under pressure - Will MacAskill and Rob Wiblin, 80,000 Hours Podcast
- Most students who would agree with EA ideas haven't heard of EA yet (results of a large-scale survey) - Lucius Caviola, Erin Morrissey, Joshua Lewis, EA Forum
- Effective altruism and the current funding situation - Will MacAskill, 80,000 Hours blog
Evaluators, grantmakers and incubators
- Announcing: CE Career Coaching for Impact-focused Entrepreneurs - Karolina Sarek, Charity Entrepreneurship
- GiveWell has published the following pages on grants it made or recommended:
- About $9 million to Nutrition International to support vitamin A supplementation (VAS) campaigns in Chad.
- Two grants to Against Malaria Foundation (AMF): $52.8 million to support long-lasting insecticide-treated net (LLIN) distribution in three countries, and $8.2 million for LLIN distribution in three Nigerian states primarily supported by President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) funding.
- Two grants to Malaria Consortium: $79.9 million to maintain or expand seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) programs in four countries, and $15.9 million to implement SMC in Nampula province, Mozambique.
- $8.2 million to Fortify Health, which supplies mills in three Indian states with equipment and materials to fortify wheat flour with iron, folic acid, and vitamin B12.
- GiveWell published short notes on why it decided to deprioritize deworming pregnant people, unconditional cash transfers during pregnancy, corticosteroids to improve birth outcomes in at-risk pregnant women, and targeted azithromycin distribution to children discharged from hospitals.
- GiveWell is also still looking for candidates for its open Senior Program Associate, Senior Researcher, Senior Research Associate, and Content Editor positions.
Cause areas
Animal welfare
- From marshes to meat: Reflections from a career in conservation - Sheila Voss, Good Food Institute.
- Why should I care about insects? - Jamie Gittens, EA Forum.
- Studies show that chickens are smarter than you think - Owen Walsh, The Humane League.
- New study on whether animal welfare reforms affect wider attitudes towards animals - Jamie Harris, EA Forum
- The horrific bird flu that has wiped out 36 million chickens and turkeys, explained - Kenny Torrella, Vox
Global health and development
- Why we didn't launch in Ukraine - Dan Quinn, GiveDirectly.
- You can save someone's life. Here's how. - Giving What We Can.
- The problem of global energy inequity, explained by American refrigerators - Siobhan McDonough, Vox.
- Have we been thinking about economic growth all wrong? - Dylan Matthews, Vox.
- 800,000th donation received, US$460,000,000 raised and 400 million people able to be protected - Thank you for your support! - Against Malaria Foundation
- James Tibenderana on the state of the art in malaria control and elimination - 80,000 Hours
- Laying foundations of good health in school classrooms across India - Nivedita Parashar, Evidence Action
Long-term future
- Many think climate change is the world's top problem because it threatens humanity's survival. Is this right? - Benjamin Hilton, 80,000 Hours.
- My thoughts on nanotechnology strategy research as an EA cause area - Ben Snodin, Rethink Priorities.
- Messy personal stuff that affected my cause prioritization (or: how I started to care about AI safety) - Julia Wise, EA Forum.
- EA is more than longtermism - Frances Lorenz, EA Forum.
Should we buy coal mines? - John Halstead, EA Forum - How to give future humans a voice in government - Sigal Samuel, Vox
- EU pioneers carbon removals certification: Key recommendations and principles - Clean Air Task Force
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Useful Links
- Review our giving recommendations.
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- Share our ideas to help grow our community and multiply your impact.
- Join other members in the Giving What We Can Community Facebook group.
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- Discuss effective giving and effective altruism on the EA Forum.
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