On GiveWell’s Top Charities page are several charities with average cost-effectiveness of $5,000-$6,000 marginal expenditure per life saved.
The world we live in is one of extreme wealth inequality. It is hard to imagine.
Some of the ultra wealthy donate some of their wealth, as do some regular people.
I can imagine a world where all of the signers of the Giving Pledge might want to donate 1-2% of their wealth each year, which should still allow their wealth to increase even, while also saturating the most cost-effective charitable opportunities for saving lives.
If this were the case, I would expect to see the most cost-effective cases saturated (leading to reduced marginal cost-effectiveness), but with tremendous improvement reducing child mortality globally. But that apparently hasn’t happened, when looking at the income for those charities.
Are the Giving What We Can people just a ‘different breed’ from the Giving Pledge people? If it is as it seems, why isn’t more word-space and cultural pressure put to trying to prevent many easily preventable child deaths via additional billionaire giving? Or is the $5,000-6,000 figure is now out of date, and the marginal cost of life-saving actually is actually considerably more expensive than that?
I’m completely befuddled, what have I missed? Thanks
[Question] Why don’t billionaires fund more towards highly cost-effective charities?
On GiveWell’s Top Charities page are several charities with average cost-effectiveness of $5,000-$6,000 marginal expenditure per life saved.
The world we live in is one of extreme wealth inequality. It is hard to imagine.
Some of the ultra wealthy donate some of their wealth, as do some regular people.
I can imagine a world where all of the signers of the Giving Pledge might want to donate 1-2% of their wealth each year, which should still allow their wealth to increase even, while also saturating the most cost-effective charitable opportunities for saving lives.
If this were the case, I would expect to see the most cost-effective cases saturated (leading to reduced marginal cost-effectiveness), but with tremendous improvement reducing child mortality globally. But that apparently hasn’t happened, when looking at the income for those charities.
Are the Giving What We Can people just a ‘different breed’ from the Giving Pledge people? If it is as it seems, why isn’t more word-space and cultural pressure put to trying to prevent many easily preventable child deaths via additional billionaire giving? Or is the $5,000-6,000 figure is now out of date, and the marginal cost of life-saving actually is actually considerably more expensive than that?
I’m completely befuddled, what have I missed? Thanks