The role of effective giving in effective altruism (MCF 2024 memo)

By Sjir Hoeijmakers🔸 @ 2024-10-02T13:11 (+20)

On request of the Meta Coordination Forum 2024 organisers, I had updated the memo I wrote last year on the role of effective giving (EG) in effective altruism (EA). I’m sharing this updated memo here (with very minor edits) in the hope it will be useful for others as well. (my other MCF memos are here: 1, 2, 3)

TL;DR

• I think a healthy EG ecosystem can be highly valuable to broader EA efforts, in particular by
  • Providing a robust funding source (in particular for EA meta and early- to mid-stage non-profits)
  • Being a growth tool for EA principles and the EA community
  • Serving as “anchor” for principles-based EA
• Some ways you can help EG grow and contribute more to EA:
  • Mentioning EG as a high-impact course of action
  • Referring high-profile people to EG orgs
  • Partnering directly with EG orgs

The (ideal) role of EG in EA

Last year, Luke Freeman and I wrote two EA forum pieces on this for the EA strategy fortnight (1, 2), which I’d recommend giving a quick read + skimming the comments if you’re interested in this topic. They remain largely consistent with how we’re thinking about this. I’ll highlight / elaborate on a few key points below.

EG as a robust funding source

• The overall EA funding space is still dominated by (and hence very dependent on) Open Phil and GiveWell, but (the rest of) the public EG ecosystem now moves >$150M per year (see updates on effective giving) and seems to be growing and to have a lot more room for growth.
• There are a few promising candidates for scaling this further, which I go into in another memo. If successful, most of these would lead to a much broader and more robust base of funding, not just for cause-specific efforts but also for EA meta and other specific funding gaps, e.g. early- to mid-stage funding in various causes.
  • For instance, GWWC are exploring launching an EG Meta Fund this giving season, based on recommendations by Meta Charity Funders, so that retail donors can contribute to effective giving meta initiatives. This should contribute towards this particular space becoming a bit more (robustly) funded.

EG as a growth tool

• My best guess (and frankly, hope!) is that EA is in many ways still in its infancy; that many (types of) people who would be interested in these principles and able to act on them have not yet been reached; and that many of these people could make contributions that far outstrip the contributions the current community has made to a better world so far.
• I think effective giving can serve as one important tool/gateway to reach these people (and plausibly it already has so far^[1]), in particular given its
  • Accessibility / Reach: most people in the world (!) could at least part with some money, and EG is a relatively easy way for them to start doing something with EA principles.
  • Educational value: I think messaging around EG can (initially) probably do a better job at educating people new to EA about cause prioritisation and other EA principles than messaging around high-impact careers can, in part because it isn’t constrained by people’s personal situation, skills, and identity as much.
  • Peer advocacy potential: building on the two aspects above, EA principles can be spread through EG messaging at relatively low cost, as we don’t need tailored advice for each individual and people can largely take a direct example from their peers/friends/family (i.e. anyone who is engaging in EG).

EG as an anchor

• I think EG has a few features that make it particularly well suited to help spread, set and protect a principles-/values-/virtues-based EA community:
  • The opportunity and incentive to keep engaging with and learning about EA principles also when career change is not viable at that particular moment in a person’s life.
  • The opportunity to keep engaging with and learning about multiple causes throughout one's life rather than (at some point) being incentivised to choose one to specialise in (and perhaps identify with).
  • Similarly, the opportunity to have fruitful two-way discussions with anyone else in the community about where one can best give (as money = money, even though values/ethics can differ).
  • The skin in the game / moral seriousness / costly signal / “practise what you preach” aspect of EG. In particular, there is always some personal cost to effective giving, whereas with careers there’ll often be convergence with personal interest, e.g. doing things one would have liked to do anyway and making quite a bit of money for oneself.
    • Note I’m not necessarily advocating for a highly frugal or sacrificial EA, but I do think some seriousness and sacrifice are healthy cultural markers and will draw in the types of people a principles-based (core) EA community needs.
• This becomes all the more important whenever there is a move towards cause-specific movement building and/or if certain causes (in particular AI) become a very large part of overall EA resource allocation. This may be the right choice for (parts of)  the community to make, but EG can help protect the broader EA community against a drift away from the principles that brought us to that choice in the first place.
• I think Luke’s post provides a particularly good personal example/story to illustrate some of the considerations here.

Ways you can help

I made some suggestions in my Forum post last year, and Luke made some more personal ones in his post as well. Three things I’d like to highlight / add:

Mentioning EG

• When discussing a problem area in a presentation, interview, or a podcast, it can be low-hanging fruit to mention EG as an accessible high-impact course of action (which doesn’t have to trade off much with other ways to take action!) and to refer the audience to a relevant place to learn more/donate.
• When doing this, I think it’s important to acknowledge that for many people (particularly those not (yet) very deep into EA, but I’d argue also many of those who are), giving effectively and significantly may be the leading way in which they have/will have an impact in their lives, and that this impact can be massive.

Referring high-profile advocates

• If there are high-profile people (i.e. people with a large audience) your organisation has a good relationship with, it may be worth referring them to the opportunity to have a large impact through advocating for effective giving.
• As a data point here, GWWC’s largest win in the past few years has been Sam Harris promoting the 10% Pledge on his podcast and in his meditation app: he has been mentioned as a referral by >1000 10% Pledgers (i.e. ~>10% of our current membership!) since. We’ve had smaller but still significant recent successes with Ali Abdaal and Rutger Bregman.

Partnering with EG orgs

• In some cases, there are ways your organisation can collaborate directly with EG organisations, e.g. because either of you has access to a target group and the other has a tool that would help in serving that target group better.
• For example, GWWC is currently partnering with various EG and non-EG organisations to bring the 10% and Trial Pledge to new target audiences and increase our shared impact at low cost. (If this is something you’re interested in and would like to learn more about, please reach out via email to james.rayton@givingwhatwecan.org)

1. ^{^}

   E.g. in the 2020 EA Survey ~35% of participants mentioned GW and ~20% of participants  mentioned GWWC as an important factor for them getting involved in broader effective altruism.