Opportunity to increase your giving impact through AMF
The below details a proposal to shift your existing donations to Against Malaria Foundation (or any other effective charity) to the Adelaide Effective Altruism’s fundraiser for AMF.
Event summary
The Run for Effective Altruism is an event being hosted by the Adelaide chapter of The Life You Can Save. The Life You Can Save is a non-profit organisation that raises awareness about the global poor and the most effective ways to help. The event will launch with a presentation given by moral philosopher Peter Singer about Effective Altruism on the 13th of April and will be followed by a series of presentations about Effective Altruism given by local volunteers to a range of schools, workplaces and community groups over the following weeks. The volunteers will run or cycle as a group between speaking venues where possible. Books about Effective Altruism will be offered for a donation to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), and other donations will be encouraged. It is expected that around 12 volunteers will be involved with the event, with an unknown number of people donating. A full analysis of the effectiveness of this event will be undertaken, with an analysis to be made publicly available.
Effective Altruism is a growing global movement that combines the heart and the head to apply science to charity, find the most effective causes, charities and ways of doing good and empowering people to undertake them.
Event goals
· To spread information about Effective Altruism and why it is important to consider the effectiveness of charities and causes when making donations.
· To raise money for AMF, rated the world’s most effective charity by GiveWell.
· To get Effective Altruism and its messages in the local news.
Summary of the Against Malaria Foundation
AMF provides anti-malarial bed nets to protect against malaria in developing nations. Each net costs around $5-6, and protects several individuals from mosquitos at night for several years, significantly reducing their chance of contracting malaria. This intervention is so effective that recent estimates indicate that a child’s life can be saved for an average of $2,838 US ($3,962 AUD). AMF has been ranked GiveWell’s top charity for 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016. A full summary of research on AMF can be found here.
Proposal
The proposal being made here is for you to offer to match some part of the donations received through this fundraiser, or to make a once off donation. The goal is to save 10 lives by raising $40,000 AUD in donations over the course of the event. The event is structured to encourage more donations through incentives such as dollar matching, while increasing awareness of Effective Altruism and the Against Malaria Foundation in Adelaide.
If you are interested in supporting this event either through a pledge to match donations, an individual donation, sharing the message of Effective Altruism you may do so via this link.
https://www.againstmalaria.com/Fundraiser.aspx?FundraiserID=7191
Why donate through this fundraiser?
Donations made to AMF through this fundraiser will have the same direct impact, but will have the added benefit of encouraging non-EAs to donate (when they see more funds being donated to the fundraiser) and by making the event more successful and getting AMF and EA in the local news. I estimate that raising over $10,000 will be enough to get the event in the local news. Donations up to $10,000 will also be matched by our members, and most of these donations are counterfactual.
Please let me know if you have any further questions, and feel free to share this.
I know this is a nitpick, and outside of the EA community no one would probably complain, but I do feel a bit uncomfortable with the following:
“To raise money for AMF, rated the world’s most effective charity by GiveWell.”
Though it is GiveWell’s top rated charity, it has not been chosen so because of it’s overall value as an organization, but because of it’s cost-effectiveness compared to other marginal donations. If I remember correctly, the Gates Foundation’s vaccination program is both more effective, and more cost-effective, but currently does not have additional room for funding.
“rated the world’s most cost-effective charity” seems better, though I think the statement “rated as best charity to donate to, by GiveWell” strikes me as most true, or just simply “GiveWell’s top recommended charity”.
I completely understand where you’re coming from Habryka, but as this proposal is for a very mixed audience, I decided not to use that kind of language as I believe it would distract from the primary message. Your last two suggestions look like they have merit, though they’re still not quite saying what I want to convey. I’ll take them into consideration.
For the most part, I wanted to make it clear that GiveWell isn’t some other meta charity claiming some charity is ‘the best’ for the sake of it. For example, in Australia we have an organisation that puts out their ‘charity of the month’ which really means nothing.
There are extra benefits from replacing “most effective” with “most cost-effective”—you help nudge the audience towards thinking of cost-effectiveness as an important metric for charities.
Will you ask donors what they would have done otherwise had they not heard of this event and decided to participate (e.g. donate to AMF anyways, or to another charity, or not donate at all)?
Yes, counterfactuality is part of the planned analysis!