Giving What We Can is looking to help (initially volunteer-led) founding teams organise to grow effective giving in more locations around the world and wants to hear from people excited about helping new effective giving projects get off the ground. These are likely to be projects in new geographies, like Effektiv Spenden, but we are also open to hearing about ideas for initiatives seeking to promote effective giving to specific interest groups, like High Impact Athletes. At this point we are prioritising supporting projects which will fundraise for GWWC’s existing recommendations over helping with geographically specific research and making geographically specific recommendations, although we are interested in this as well.
The list of locations/interest groups that we are actively seeking expressions of interest for occasionally changes. Please find the most recent list on our expression of interest form.
Send us your expression of interest
There is still a lack of funding for effective charities. Over the last couple of years, many new highly impactful charities have gotten started to solve the world's most pressing problems. However, there are still significant gaps in funding for these charities, which pose a significant risk to their survival and impact over the long term. Even many established highly impactful charities (in particular global health charities) have significant room to absorb more funding effectively (see AMF room for more funding as an example).
Apart from the direct effects of encouraging donations to cost-effective causes, there are also many positive indirect effects from promoting effective giving; such as advocating for effective altruism and promoting positive values globally. It may also help us to promote more evidence-based, impact-driven, and transparent thinking in the philanthropic sector more generally. Research also suggests that donating to effective charities is a significant first step towards thinking more about effective altruism.
However, there are significant regional gaps in the current effective giving ecosystem. As a result, donors from unrepresented regions or communities may be unable to make (tax-deductible) donations to effective charities and more importantly may not even come to hear about effective giving, as the ideas are not available in their language or cultural/community/social context. We think that this represents a huge missed opportunity — and one that we hope to help rectify.
Effective giving initiatives are entities that focus on raising money for effective nonprofits and other high-impact funding opportunities. Often, they narrow their outreach focus to a particular geographic area or interest group in order to tailor their messaging to their specific audience.
Effective giving initiatives tend to accept donations on behalf of their recommended charities and regrant the money to these charities. Additionally, as a donation platform, these organisations facilitate the donation experience and provide tax deductibility (where possible) to their donors, even if the recipient charity is based outside of the donor’s country. By directing the gifts from these donors to the most effective charities and projects, effective giving initiatives can amplify the impact of individual donors, contributing significantly to solving the world's most pressing problems.
There are now a variety of effective giving projects that have got started, but are not mature enough to be listed on the effective giving ecosystem database. These groups, projects and initiatives may still require support and as such we still encourage expressions of interest related to these locations:
In early 2019 a new effective giving initiative called Effektiv Spenden was founded in Germany. Over the following 3 years, this small team was able to establish itself as an authoritative voice on evidence-based giving and high-impact philanthropy. They set up a website and started fundraising through their donation platform and philanthropic advisory services. They grew from €330k in donations in their first year in 2019 to having raised €15.3m from more than 9,000 donors in 2022 for some of the most effective charities in the world. As a result of this success, the team grew from <2 FTE in 2021 to approx. 7 FTE in 2023 to invest in further growth.
Following in the footsteps of Effektiv Spenden, a new initiative called Doneer Effectief was founded in the Netherlands in 2022. They started an online donor platform on October 1st, 2022. In their first operating year, they raised €1.4m. In addition to more established fundraising techniques, Doneer Effectief has pioneered using local ambassadors to promote effective giving (for example working with bestselling author Rutger Bregman) and appearing in many newspapers, magazines, public radio, podcasts and television shows.
We are initially interested in bringing together a volunteer working group that would set the strategy, take the initial steps, and potentially secure funding to hire an executive director (who could be one of the original founding team). The types of roles that could be useful at this stage will be very varied and include e.g. volunteers, board members, (possibly) an executive director and other team members, particularly those with expertise in the following areas:
Giving What We Can can provide support to new initiatives in the following ways:
The level of support will depend on the specific project, its potential for impact, and the strength of the founding team.
Giving What We Can has previously provided support in various ways to different effective giving organisations, here are just a few illustrative examples:
Send us your expression of interest
GWWC can provide ongoing support to these new initiatives so they don’t need to build infrastructure from scratch and can learn from best practices in the effective giving space. In addition to offering general advice, support, and mentorship, GWWC can also provide our brand and product (website, donation platform, and pledge infrastructure) in some cases. If new organisations wish to take advantage of these offers of additional support there are currently 2 clear ways to further collaborate with us, although other options can be discussed:
Option 1: Brand Partnership
Under this arrangement, organisations would have the ability to use GWWC's brand with slight modifications if desired. However, there would be a condition that organisations using GWWC's brand would likely be limited to raising funds for charities endorsed by the GWWC research team in consultation with expert evaluators. While there may be some possibility to raise funds for other charities, it should be made clear that the level of research conducted on them is not as extensive as the core recommendations. Even in this case, the ability to do so would be at the discretion of GWWC.
E.g. Ayuda Efectiva.
Option 2: Brand partnership and product licence
In addition to using the GWWC brand, organisations may also be able to use the GWWC product. This includes the technical infrastructure of GWWC, such as the admin interface, business intelligence tool, website and content management system, donation platform, pledge platform, and end-of-tax-year tax receipts. Currently, GWWC does not have plans to develop a white-labelled product. Therefore, organisations wishing to use GWWC's product would have to also use GWWC's brand, along with the associated conditions.
E.g. Don Efficace.