Effective altruism - doing good better.

[Taswama]

I've just finished this book - Doing Good Better by William Macaskill. It was really interesting and is about making sure your charity donations or volunteering (and maybe your job) are actually making a difference.

They recommend a very small number of charities tackling very specific issues such as malaria and deworming that are underfunded so every pound or dollar will make a real difference. Whereas cancer charities receive much more funding across the world so the extra £10 that you donate won't make much difference.

I currently do micro credits which are actually pretty ineffective and I'm going to stop donating to a cat charity too. I will keep the local food bank on the list but I need to look at my other charities (Shelter, BPAS, Womens Aid). These all feel like good causes and I think the women's ones probably get less money than the cat one so I want to understand what they are doing with the money.

Has anyone else read this book or looked at their website (www.givewell.org) and is interested in discussing?

I haven't read the book but have wondered about this so will try and get hold of it.

Posting to boost interest.

This is very interesting, thanks OP. I run a food bank. I’m really interested in what motivates people to donate/volunteer with one group/for a particular cause over another.

I first read about effective altruism a few years ago in a fascinating book called Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar. Then I started reading about the Giving What We Can movement, where people pledge to give away a certain proportion of their income to effective charities. Julia Wise also wrote a guest post on Mumsnet about it a few years ago. (She's in the US where I think philanthropy is more of a 'thing' due to lower taxes).

We have some standing orders to various charities, including Against Malaria, Mary's Meals and Camfed, and some UK environmental charities, but it's not 10% of our income by any means.

What I'm less keen on about the effective altruism movement is that it sometimes seems a bit clinical as it's very numbers-driven, whereas charitable giving often tends to be emotional - for example, donating to a cancer charity if a relative has died of cancer. IIRC a speaker on one of the TED talks said that he wouldn't donate to a UK guide dog charity because it would help fewer people than if the money went somewhere where things are cheaper. Perhaps this is reflected to some extent in the fact that people will often donate to an appeal for a child to have expensive experimental drugs or treatment overseas that only has a limited chance of success, whereas if they were thinking purely in terms of how many lives they could save for X amount of money, they would be better off donating to fund bednets, for example.

It's been a few years since I read Will MacAskill's book so I may have remembered this a bit wrong, but a couple of things stood out that I don't necessarily agree with - 1. buy new stuff rather than secondhand, as this provides more employment - despite the environmental impact of over-consumption; and 2. don't worry too much about your carbon footprint, just donate to Cool Earth.

@maudofthemarches over here!

The £10 on its own may make no difference but that’s true of most donations.

Thanks @Tellmeagain .

I donate to the food bank as I mentioned, @TheWayTheLightFallsin fact its my single largest donation. I think food is an absolutely basic requirement and having a singular aim means I think (assume) that almost all my donations go straight to the people who need it not on marketing, special projects etc. I have also volunteered there and the fact it is local also helps.

Yes he does address the emotional side to donations @NobbyButtons and says you shouldn't really. I'm thinking I will probably continue to donate to causes that are really important to me (domestic violence, reproductive choice) but need to try and research if some are better / more effective than others.

I don't remember reading about not buying second hand but I already try not to donate clothes that aren't in really good condition ad they get sold on to poorer countries which basically means their own clothing industries can't compete.

I thought his arguments about reducing meat consumption for environmental (ficus on beef, dairy) or animal welfare (focus on eggs, chicken, pork) arguments were really interesting and realistic that not everyone is going to go vegan.

@TheWayTheLightFalls For me I volunteer where my skills are best used. So, I volunteer in a school one day a week because I have good Makaton skills and lots of experience of working with early years children. I know how underfunded schools are and how much this year's intake are struggling so I can be effective there.

I donate to our local food bank because I grew up in poverty, often not knowing if there would be food. I donate to Love Grace because I have been in an abusive relationship and they give support to women in refuges. British Legion because of the support they gave my family members over the years / in memory of my granda.

So basically, where I can be useful and causes close to my heart. I usually choose smaller charities over large where I can as I feel the donation makes more of an impact.

@DustyMaiden

The £10 on its own may make no difference but that’s true of most donations.

Yes , although the point he makes is that £10 to 'Bednets for Africa' may buy a anti malaria bed net so contribute to saving / prolonging someone's life, whereas £10 to your local hospice / cancer charity may contribute to providing a massage for a carer as respite. So your £10 has a bigger effect in a poorer country and for a neglected cause.

Can I remind people (gently) that if they are donating to a local Food Bank do make sure they actually need your donations, our local FB is overwhelmed with donations (I help at it) & we genuinely don't need any more donations but people keep on giving ... we try as much as possible to redistribute the food but we are in a fortunate part of the country where the demand is not high. I personally donate to another FB in a really deprived area as I can see that's where the support is needed.

Ragwort how would you know? I also live in a low poverty level area but there are various collection points in supermarkets etc so I assume the food banks still need donations?

My husband donated a chunk of a bonus to Effective Altruism, think thats the name of a charity. He's a big fan of Sam Harris who's discussed it at length on his podcast.

Large scoping charities inevitably have a lot of waste and can cause further problems. Eg Bill Gates Foundation has ploughed so much money into malaria in poor countries, systems and support structures are no longer in place for other life threatening illnesses like pneumonia.

It's donating money close to source to charities that have the greatest impact.

As I understand it.

Thanks for this thread. This is so timely. I’ve made some charitable donations over the last year based on my emotional connection to the work the charities do. While I think that this is has value, I also like the idea of contributing where my money will make the most difference.

Must admit that I was surprised at how far up the Givewell list the charities which provided vitamin A supplements and deworming were. I’m definitely going to use the list to inform some of my charity giving this year.

Interesting point @Ragwort. I have a standing order to our local foodbank so they can buy whatever they need. I follow them on Facebook too and they have been talking a lot about the massive increase in demand in the last two years and asking for specific donations.

Thanks for the redirect, Taswama! Offline at the mo but will have a read of this thread tomorrow.

Like @NobbyButtons I'm also a bit sceptical. They make a lot of good points, but I think the movement, in some ways, is a great way for very wealthy people to feel like they are best at doing good- but it's not strong on changing the world. I have a big problem with the suggestion that getting a big finance job and donating a truckload of money is going to be the biggest impact for good you can have- I'd argue that you probably do more harm in that job, maintaining the status quo, creating profit out of global injustice, and flying frequently, for instance, than you will ever mitigate by supporting any amount of research in underfunded diseases.

And I also bristle at the suggestion in the online career chooser that you should either be a groundbreaking leader with a new idea, be it in the third sector or making truckloads of money to donate... or be a PA for one. Teachers, nurses etc etc all clearly overrated. The movement started at oxbridge and it shows...

DH and I recently cancelled all our charity donations (except a couple of small ones for emotional reasons) and set up giving 10% of our income (after tax) directly to Effective Altruism. I feel like we are making much more of a difference - it only takes, on average, a few hundred pounds to save a life through schemes like deworming, promoting childhood vaccinations in Africa and mosquito nets, which is pretty mindblowing.

I was a bit disappointed when the author mentioned Bill Gates as a great philanthropist. I think I read somewhere that a lot of his charitable donations go to the charitable foundations of other billionaires like Warren Buffet and is an effective way of reducing the amount of tax he has to pay.

I do know what you mean though Dusty . We still need nurses, doctors, teachers in the UK not just people working in finance who give 10% of their earnings away.