[Question] Do you know some promising French charities (which may or may not work globally) ?

[CB🔸]

I am a member of Effective Altruism France, and I am working on a project that aims to identify some high impact charities in France, for each cause area.

The goal is to get tax-deductible charities, which is especially relevant to France since it has a very generous tax deductibility policy (66%, meaning that the impact of a donation can be effectively tripled compared to donating in other countries). So the recommended charities could be up to 3 times less effective than international ones.

There are a few charities recommended by EA evaluators already (see below), but we’re trying to go further and recommend about 3-4 organizations per cause area (if at all possible). We’re looking at the usual EA cause areas: global health and poverty, animal welfare, x-risk reduction (AI Safety, nuclear war, biorisks), and environmental damage (if you have another suggestion, go ahead!)

These charities may or may not work directly in France (Note: for global health and poverty, it’s unlikely that working in France is more competitive than working in low-income countries—but I’m still interested by charities for those that want to donate to French only).

In this context, do you know some promising tax-deductible French charities?

Optional—More context about our method

In addition to checking recommendations from EA evaluators, we’re using the method identified by EA Sweden. It aims to identify a number of experts (EA or non-EA) who are knowledgeable about the topics above, and to exchange with them about what they think is effective, and to get feedback on other experts recommandations.

If you know some french experts on these topics, please tell us !

French charities that have been recommended by EA evaluators

Several charities that are tax-deductible in France have been recommended by EA evaluators at some point.

• For Givewell: AMF, Hellen Keller International, and SCI Foundation.

  • They are not French, but are tax-deductible (because they have a French branch, or via Transnational Giving Europe).

  • I’m aware that some of them are not recommended anymore since there has been a change in Givewell’s criterias, but Givewell still sees their program as strong.

• For Animal Charity Evaluators: L214, Assiettes Végétales (through Anima International).

  • Some also received a grant in the past: Convergence Animaux Politique, Agriculture Cellulaire France, Paris Animaux Zoopolis, World Day for the End of Fishing/​Speciesism, Reseau Sentience, Césama

• Other: Oxfam received a recommendation from The Life You Can Save (less sure about this one—how does this apply to the French branch?)

Note: Just because these charities are on the list doesn’t mean we will automatically give a recommendation—this will depend on expert feedback

[Matthieu]

Do you know some promising tax-deductible French charities?

Wouldn’t it be useful to cast a wider net here by including all European charities?

In my understanding, donating to a charity in any European country provides tax deductions that are equal to those given to charities based in France. From the horse’s mouth:

Vous avez effectué un don au profit d’organismes agréés dont le siège est situé dans un Etat membre de l’Union Européenne ou dans un Etat partie à l’Espace économique européen ayant conclu avec la France une convention fiscale d’assistance administrative en vue de lutter contre la fraude et l’évasion fiscales.

Vous pouvez bénéficier d’une réduction d’impôt dans les mêmes conditions que pour les dons effectués au profit d’organismes situés en France.

Portez case 7 VA de la déclaration 2042 RICI le montant des dons versés aux organismes venant en aide aux personnes en difficulté (la limite de 1 000 € est commune avec la case 7UD) et indiquez case 7 VC de la 2042 RICI celui correspondant aux versements effectués aux autres organismes d’intérêt général.

So donations to—for instance—Ayuda Efectiva (Spain) or Effektiv Spenden (Germany) should be tax deductible in France as long as these orgs are recognized by respectively Spain and Germany for their charitable status.

Or am I missing something?

Resources:

• https://​​www.impots.gouv.fr/​​particulier/​​questions/​​jai-fait-des-dons-une-association-que-puis-je-deduire

  • Form 2042 RICI

• https://​​www.lexpress.fr/​​argent/​​droit/​​un-don-a-un-organisme-etranger-ouvre-droit-a-une-reduction-d-impot_1586740.html

  • Case C‑318/​07 presented before the CJEU

[CB🔸]

Hi ! This is a good idea, and thanks for the links. This could especially be good for the Good Food Institute that has an EU branch.

However, it seems that some people from Altruisme Efficace France and Don Efficace looked into it and found that this was more complicated than that. Namely, the “organismes agréés”—what is it?
Still, they looked at it from the angle of a “foundation”, not for an individual donation. I asked them about that, and an waiting for an answer. I’ll get back to you with more info.

[CB🔸]

Hi—so I looked into it, and asked a few people who tried to do that, and the answer is confusing.
Their reading of the law is that yes, it’s deductible, but in practice it didn’t seem to work.

One person I asked said her financial advisor took it off her tax return. She said (translated):

Donations: only those made to French organizations, or to organizations based in a member state of the European Community or in a member state of the European Economic Area that has signed a tax treaty with France, provided that they pursue similar objectives and have similar characteristics to eligible organizations based in France and, in principle, approved.

It’s not really clear why it’s not deductible, though. But it didn’t seem to be possible.

Btw, are you french?

[Matthieu]

Thanks for the additional data points.

I asked impots.gouv about effektiv spenden specifically, outlining how their scope would make donations to a similar French non profit eligible to a tax deduction in France.

The response from the administration was that “as mentioned on impots.gouv.fr, these donations are deductible”.

After a chat with ES, my understanding is that it’s up to every European country to decide what their definition of “charitable” entails, and whether a particular non profit falls under it (regardless of how it would be perceived in their country of origin). This is coherent with the financial advisor’s response as far as I can tell.

Ultimately, it might be worth doing the leg work beforehand and get confirmation from the tax office on a case by case basis.

Yes, I’m French 🙂🐓

[CB🔸]

Wow, that’s interesting.

I transfered your message once again—I’ll tell you what comes out of it.

(are you on the Altruisme Efficace France Slack, by the way?

I can also give you the work on french charities if you’re interested)

[Matthieu]

(are you on the Altruisme Efficace France Slack, by the way?

--> no

I can also give you the work on french charities if you’re interested)

--> sure, thanks!

[CB🔸]

Hi—I noticed I forgot to answer.
The EA France Slack link is here : https://​​www.altruismeefficacefrance.org/​​rejoindre-la-communaute

You can find the organisations here https://​​www.altruismeefficacefrance.org/​​organisations-recommandees

We also realised several cause areas pages in French, including one on the environment : https://​​www.altruismeefficacefrance.org/​​environnement

[Miguel Lima Medín 🔸]

Have you considered setting up a French foundation that would receive the funds from the donors and then allocate to several programs? There are several experiences in different countries: https://​​www.givingwhatwecan.org/​​get-involved/​​tax-deductibility

I personally donate through Ayuda Efectiva in Spain.

[CB🔸]

There’s currently a project that currently attempts to do something kind of like that in France (though different on some aspects). It would be used as a way of making some international charities tax-deductible in France, if I understand correctly.

However, setting this up is complicated from a legal standpoint, and there are uncertainties. It doesn’t seem easy, on a legal standpoint. So we’ll see how this goes.

[Jérémy Perret]

Assuming you’re referring to Don Efficace, I thought I’d provide a link.

[CB🔸]

By the way, this project has been completed. You can find the organisations here https://​​www.altruismeefficacefrance.org/​​organisations-recommandees

We also realised several cause areas pages in French, including one on the environment : https://​​www.altruismeefficacefrance.org/​​environnement