This year, I am giving $10K to Charity Entrepreneurship’s incubated charities at their discretion as they know where it will best be placed after all counterfactuals have been calculated. I am giving here for a lot of reasons (CoI: I like them so much I am on the board):
I think there is a lot of counterfactual value in supporting new EA startups with higher risk profiles, especially within CE, where there is a good rate of growth to GW Top Charity status.
I like to fund stuff that isn’t getting funded through the normal means to create more diversified funding in the EA space, which I believe is extremely important and more important than ever given the FTX situation.
It is FUN to read project proposals and be a bit more involved early stage—feels more like venture capital than e.g. giving to AMF (although I wouldn’t begrudge anyone giving to AMF by any means!)
I also gave smaller sums to other organizations this year—numbers rough as I don’t have the donation receipt yet and am too lazy to look it up: $2500 to a mix of the following charities:
Effektiv Spenden—they have a crazy multiplier on money in → money raised so I think this is a great, leveraged way to donate.
CATF
AMF
I gave to CATF and AMF as well mostly to hedge on myself being too meta. I think there is a tough tradeoff between leverage in meta stuff and meta 1) being less clearly linked to actual impact and 2) the fear that donating to meta orgs, where I’ve been more at home over the past 6 years is more giving to my friends and keeping the money “in the family” than doing actual good. I think meta is still worth it, as evidenced by my donations, but I think this is a concern to take seriously.
Finally, I suppose I donate to my own org, High Impact Professionals, by taking a lower salary than I otherwise would as that makes more sense than taking a salary, getting taxed, and then donating back to my own org, at least if you think, as I do, that our org can do more good than the marginal dollar to the German/US government. I am a little bit biased on that one though.
This year, I am giving $10K to Charity Entrepreneurship’s incubated charities at their discretion as they know where it will best be placed after all counterfactuals have been calculated. I am giving here for a lot of reasons (CoI: I like them so much I am on the board):
I think there is a lot of counterfactual value in supporting new EA startups with higher risk profiles, especially within CE, where there is a good rate of growth to GW Top Charity status.
I like to fund stuff that isn’t getting funded through the normal means to create more diversified funding in the EA space, which I believe is extremely important and more important than ever given the FTX situation.
It is FUN to read project proposals and be a bit more involved early stage—feels more like venture capital than e.g. giving to AMF (although I wouldn’t begrudge anyone giving to AMF by any means!)
I also gave smaller sums to other organizations this year—numbers rough as I don’t have the donation receipt yet and am too lazy to look it up: $2500 to a mix of the following charities:
Effektiv Spenden—they have a crazy multiplier on money in → money raised so I think this is a great, leveraged way to donate.
CATF
AMF
I gave to CATF and AMF as well mostly to hedge on myself being too meta. I think there is a tough tradeoff between leverage in meta stuff and meta 1) being less clearly linked to actual impact and 2) the fear that donating to meta orgs, where I’ve been more at home over the past 6 years is more giving to my friends and keeping the money “in the family” than doing actual good. I think meta is still worth it, as evidenced by my donations, but I think this is a concern to take seriously.
Finally, I suppose I donate to my own org, High Impact Professionals, by taking a lower salary than I otherwise would as that makes more sense than taking a salary, getting taxed, and then donating back to my own org, at least if you think, as I do, that our org can do more good than the marginal dollar to the German/US government. I am a little bit biased on that one though.