Request for Proposals: Effective Giving

By Melanie Basnak🔸, Kearney Capuano 🔸 @ 2026-05-19T17:28 (+48)

We are excited to announce a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for effective giving organizations, defined as initiatives that raise funds for highly effective charities. Through this RFP, we aim to identify and support additional efforts in the effective giving space and streamline the application process for potential grantees.

Motivation

Our Effective Giving & Careers Fund has historically supported a variety of effective giving organizations across multiple countries. Examples of current grantees include Giving What We Can, Effektiv Spenden, and Doneer Effectief (you can find other recent grants here). 

Effective giving currently comprises ~70% of our portfolio, reflecting its central role in our broader funding strategy. In the past few years, we have been surprised by the growth of the effective giving ecosystem: new initiatives have launched worldwide, and existing efforts have successfully channeled substantial funds to promising opportunities.

Based on our internal analysis, we estimate that our current grantees deliver an average adjusted return on donations of 6x across our effective giving portfolio, with some grantees as high as ~10x. We believe that additional organizations we’re not currently supporting may be poised to generate similar impact. Through this RFP, we hope to:

  1. Invite and encourage new and existing effective giving organizations to apply for funding.
  2. Simplify and standardize the application process for both applicants and our internal review team.
  3. Better understand the current funding needs and gaps within the effective giving space.

Eligibility

Any organization contributing to raising funds for effective charities can apply. This includes, but is not limited to:

Additional considerations

Our current grantees raise funds across a variety of focus areas that align with Coefficient Giving’s strategic priorities (global health and development, farm animal welfare, global catastrophic risks). Any organization raising funds for those areas is welcome to apply.

Your organization should be able to justify how it can cost-effectively use additional funding.

Existing grantees on renewable grants will continue to be assessed for general support on their regular schedule. However, they are welcome to apply for top-up funding if they believe they can utilize additional funds cost-effectively. Top-up funds awarded through this RFP will be a one-time supplement rather than a permanent increase to future grant renewals.

Funding amount and grant structure

In general, we think unrestricted funding for general operating support can be the most valuable funding type, so we expect to provide that by default where possible. That said, we are open to funding specific projects or needs; also, other factors such as the grantee’s corporate structure may influence how we structure our grant.

We aim to represent at most 50% of operational funding for more established organizations, but are comfortable contributing to a larger percentage of total funding for newer organizations. Please keep that in mind when you apply for funding.

We expect most grants to be for one or two years and non-renewable by default.

We don’t have a predetermined minimum or maximum number of applications we intend to fund. We are keen to support as many promising opportunities as possible. 

Ideas we’d be excited about:

Selection criteria and evaluation process

We expect to consider the following factors in our assessment:

Our application was designed to be comprehensive and provide all of the information we think we will need to assess the candidates. That being said, we may reach out to certain applicants for additional information.

Application logistics

You can apply using this link. If useful, you can refer to this sample application using a mix of mock and real data. Applications are due by June 26, 2026, at 11:59 pm PT.

We aim to notify all applicants of their status by the end of August. Due to the anticipated high number of applications, we won’t be able to provide individualized feedback to organizations we decide not to fund.

If you have any questions related to this RFP, please feel free to contact Melanie Basnak at melanie.basnak@coefficientgiving.org or Kearney Capuano at kearney.capuano@coefficientgiving.org. Please note that we will not be fielding questions after June 15.

david_reinstein @ 2026-05-20T19:50 (+2)

Very interesting RFP.

Could you share evidence for the

Based on our internal analysis, we estimate that our current grantees deliver an average adjusted return on donations of 6x across our effective giving portfolio, with some grantees as high as ~10x.

This seems surprisingly high in light of other research I have seen on counterfactial returns to donor matches and other standard interventions., and the idea that charities will already want to invest money in efforts to maximize donations, nearly up to the point where an additional dollar invested in marketing yields $1 in additional contributions.

If there is truly this kind of multiplier that would suggest that Effective Giving organizations are dramatically, drastically underfunded.

If an investment in an organization can yield anything over 1x in counterfactual donations, this would be worth funding.

Even more so, if we assume that there are indirect benefits and spillovers to getting people to make effective donations. E.g., Effective giving organizations that convince people to donate to global health charities are likely to be simultaneously convincing them to be more supportive of foreign aid and pro-development trade policies. The things that convince people to donate or pledge for effective animal welfare charities are also likely to convince people to change their diet and support animal welfare legislatio, etc.

Michael Townsend🔸 @ 2026-05-20T22:31 (+4)

(Flagging I work at CG, but not on this team!) 

Curious what you think of the Giving What We Can impact evaluation? I helped write the first one, which claimed that over the 2020–2022 period it had an average multiplier of 30x. I think the more recent one claimed it had a 6x multiplier. 

If an investment in an organization can yield anything over 1x in counterfactual donations, this would be worth funding.

I think there's an important distinction between average and marginal effectiveness — the above claim seems true in the abstract for orgs that can move >$1 on the margin but not on average. And IMO it's much harder to estimate marginal cost-effectiveness, because it's forward looking, whereas historical average cost-effectiveness is a bit easier.

david_reinstein @ 2026-05-21T14:09 (+2)

Thanks, I'll try to gave a look at that and comment (I might have seen it in the past).

What you say about average vs. marginal seems true in principle but

A. "we estimate that our current grantees deliver an average adjusted return on donations of 6x across our effective giving portfolio"

Saying 'deliver' to me present tense implies "deliver and will continue to deliver", suggesting the marginal returns should be comparable.

B. Given the nature of what these funds go for and what these organizations are doing, to me it indeed seems intuitive to expect marginal returns to be fairly similar to the previous returns. 

Starting new ~regional initiatives: Okay, once the markets are saturated for "founding new effective giving orgs in new areas" there should be diminishing returns.  But it would seem like that should already have been picked up by the data from the most recent crop. 

For marketing and advertising activities, I even more expect the returns to perhaps decrease somewhat with future expenditure, but in a sort of gradual, continual way.  

I might be overlooking some aspects of what the organizations and these grants are doing ... But generally, I tend to expect that more money brings diminishing returns, but only gradually diminishing returns. So if Estonia was seen as the 'next most promising target', and founding an organization there had 5x returns, and Latvia is the next one on the priority list, you might expect that to have 4.5x returns. 

 

Michael Townsend🔸 @ 2026-05-21T15:49 (+2)

Saying 'deliver' to me present tense implies "deliver and will continue to deliver", suggesting the marginal returns should be comparable.

This could still be (and I'd guess is?) referring to the past and expected future average cost-effectiveness. 

I also think that it'd be pretty reasonable to have a bar higher than 1x. (I don't know what CG's bar actually is.) There are many contentious choices you make when coming up with a multiplier — e.g., how do you discount future donations, how do you discount donations to less cost-effective charities, do you adjust for the opportunity cost of the labor of the employees who could otherwise do impactful work or eartn to give, etc. There's also just a huge amount of  uncertainty in various places, especially around counterfactuality. So given all that, I think it'z reasonable to just zoom out and think: hmm, this intervention looks great overall, but I think the multiplier model isn't robust enough to justify further support of organizations that it estimates only have a 1.1x multiplier. 

david_reinstein @ 2026-05-21T16:12 (+2)

If it's average future that still could justify a 1x bar, depending on what we're averaging over.

I agree with the concerns about uncertainty, displacing less-effective charities, and counterfactuality. But I'd rather see attempts to adjust the estimate for that rather than ~"we're saying 6x but not really, probably lower after considering this". This will help avoid temptations towards soldier/promotion mentality, and make it more comparable to other estimates.

(RE "opportunity cost of the labor of the employees who could otherwise do impactful work or eartn to give, etc" -- if EA people are putting in free labor into these efforts, that should also be factored into the cost estimates, naturally, not just the direct CG investment.)

Michael Townsend🔸 @ 2026-05-21T19:27 (+2)

If it's average future that still could justify a 1x bar, depending on what we're averaging over.


I don't think it does. It's conceptually coherent for an organization to have a very high average cost-effectiveness while also having a marginal cost-effectiveness below 1x. For this reason, I don't think you should have a "bar" for average cost-effectiveness. (You might be making the point that if the average cost-effectiveness is above 1, then you are better off making the grant than burning the money, and so it clears a bar in that sense, but it's not clear it's worth making the grant vs making a potentially much smaller grant, and so it's not a helpful 'bar' in the sense the term is usually used.) 

I agree with the concerns about uncertainty, displacing less-effective charities, and counterfactuality. But I'd rather see attempts to adjust the estimate for that rather than ~"we're saying 6x but not really, probably lower after considering this". This will help avoid temptations towards soldier/promotion mentality, and make it more comparable to other estimates.

Sure, but these are hard to account for. I agree it's better to adjust the model when it's possible, but you'll still be left with a model that has a tonne of uncertainty. 

(RE "opportunity cost of the labor of the employees who could otherwise do impactful work or eartn to give, etc" -- if EA people are putting in free labor into these efforts, that should also be factored into the cost estimates, naturally, not just the direct CG investment.)

Yep! I wasn't trying to suggest you shouldn't account for that.
 

david_reinstein @ 2026-05-21T19:55 (+2)

I want  to make sure we're talking about the same thing here.  I'd be want to know the cost-effectiveness in terms "for each $1 we spend to promote giving" (via starting new orgs or doing more fundraising) "how much do we raise in truly counterfactual donations to the most effective charities" and I'd want this to be net of any donations or effective work that might be crowded out.  

E.g., suppose Joe lives in the USA and earns $100k per year. Without our spending Joe,  would not give anything to charity and would also not be doing socially-useful work. We spend $1 on ads and this causes Joe (a rich guy) to give $1.50 to The Humane League or The Malaria Consortium, without affecting anyone else's behavior. From the PoV of ~"the EA community" we have earned our $1 back plus gained an additional 50 cents. Again from the global EA community perspective, wouldn't we always want to do this?   

Michael Townsend🔸 @ 2026-05-21T20:23 (+6)

The example you gave is about marginal cost-effectiveness (we spend "$1 on ads").  I agree that then, in this abstract/idealized case, you should spend the $1 on ads. I think all the uncertainty you would realistically have makes it less obvious, though.

But average cost-effectiveness would be more like, we spent $1,000,000 on an organization that did a bunch of different activities, and we think that led to $1,500,000 counterfactually going to charity. This seems good on average, but there's a further question of whether we should give another $1 to the organization. And I think that the 6x figure of the orignal post is referring to average cost-effectiveness ("our current grantees deliver an average adjusted return on donations of 6x across our effective giving portfolio"). This is at least conceptually coherent with the bar for the marginal $ being closer to 1x.

I think you might find the GWWC impact evals interesting, they go into an enormous amount of depth on all these issues. 

david_reinstein @ 2026-05-21T20:31 (+2)

Okay, thank you. I aim to take a look at these evals and hopefully learn something and maybe give some useful feedback.

And one more point which maybe is obvious but just to get it out there.

Sure, but these are hard to account for. I agree it's better to adjust the model when it's possible, but you'll still be left with a model that has a tonne of uncertainty.

I agree that a large amount of uncertainty will persist, but I suppose we should aim to do the modeling and adjustments is mean zero. E.g., we'd put in a large adjustment for 'potential non-counterfactuality' for things like "maybe the people who pledged would have pledged later on anyways and the fact that they pledged and donated now means that they're likely to end their pledges earlier."

I suspect that the impact evaluations indeed consider things like these, and I am looking forward to going over them when I have a moment. Thanks for engaging.