Giving What We Can is excited to help (initially volunteer-led) founding teams organise to grow effective giving in more locations around the world and is open to hearing 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 prioritise supporting projects which will fundraise for GWWC’s existing recommendations over helping with geographically specific research and making geographically specific recommendations.
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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 still 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 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.
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.
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.