Iāll be giving most of my donations ($25,000+) to GiveWell this year, with a smattering going to other global health charities (~$5000 split between AMF, GiveDirectly, Development Media International, and a few others). This amounts to roughly 22% of my income.
This plan isnāt meant to be optimized for direct impact. Because I only give a modest amount, I expect most of my impact to come from influencing others, so I try to optimize for āgiving in a way that Iām excited to shareā.
Specifically, almost all of this yearās giving comes from my success in tournament-level Magic: the Gathering, as well as revenues from streaming and exhibition events that followed from those tournaments. I publicized my choice to donate half of my tournament/āstreaming revenue, and I assumed that this would be most motivating/āinspiring if I gave to charities with clear paths to impact which my viewers could easily understand.
(Of course, I alsobelieve that these charities are excellent, and I gave them heavy support before I ever became a streamer.)
So far, Iāve had modest success in building leverage through public donations. Someone claims to have matched my GiveWell donation (I havenāt verified this myself, but James Snowden did thank them, which is something), and one EAGxAsia-Pacific attendee told me they discovered EA at least in part because they saw me discuss it on Magic streams.
I also give $100/āmonth to the EA Infrastructure Fund, partly because I think meta work is the highest-leverage way to donate and partly so I can have the direct experience of being an EA Funds donor. Because I work for CEA, Iād like to āeat my own dog foodā (use the products I work on) in a few different ways.
I respect cluelessness arguments enough that Iāve removed āstronglyā from āstrongly believeā in my response; I was just in an enthusiastic mood.
My giving to charities focused on short-term impact (and GiveWell in particular) is motivated by a few things:
I believe that my work currently generates much more value for CEA than the amount I donate to other charities, which means that almost all of my impact is likely of a meta/ālongtermist variety. But I am morally uncertain, and place enough credence on moral theories emphasizing short-term value that I want at least a fraction of my work to impact people who are alive today.
Around the time I joined CEA, I had been rapidly becoming more focused on the long term; had I taken some other non-EA job, I think that all or almost all of my donations would be going to meta causes as a way of getting long-term leverage. Instead, I get to hedge a bit with my donations.
Personal/āemotional factors. I sleep a bit better at night knowing that Iāve used my unusually lucky circumstances to provide something good for people who have been unusually unlucky. (In theory, I should also sleep worse because Iāve deprived longtermist projects of funding, but that isnāt how my brain works for some reason.)
Support for an especially well-run organization. I think that the quality of work done at GiveWell (from their charity reports and shared spreadsheets to their Mistakes page) puts them in a class of their own within EA, and I think that having orgs like this is a good thing for EA as a whole; to paraphrase Thomas Callaghan, āquality has a quality all its own.ā To the extent that GiveWell is a flagship org within the broader EA movement, one which will be the first introduction to EA for many people, I think itās good on a meta level for them to have more resources even if the marginal impact of those resources is lower than it might be for newer/āsmaller orgs.
I should clarify that my GiveWell donation will be going towards their operations, not the Maximum Impact Fund. If this helps them e.g. advertise more widely, I think thatās a solid meta investment.
This view is informed largely by my own experience; I would have taken much longer to enter EA (if Iād entered at all) had GiveWell not been around to show me that āyes, this movement can produce high-quality research in a way you can actually verify, and itās obvious that our charities crush much of the competition dollar-for-dollar.ā
I should also clarify that, by āexcellentā, I donāt so much mean āextremely high impactā as āhigh standard of quality in how the organization is runā.
Of course, that makes me Charity Navigator, so perhaps I should choose a different word.
Anyway, Iāve more than filled my āshort-term bucketā for this year and next; my future winnings will probably go to smaller projects (if I have time to evaluate them) or other potential āflagshipā orgs like 80,000 Hoursāwhich now seems to be the most common entry point into EA for people, serving the role that GiveWell did back when I got into EA. But this will, as before, depend on how well I think I can pitch them to a non-EA audience.
As for replying more directly to the arguments you linked: my views combine a bit of Khorton, a bit of both Aidanresponses...
...and also, a lot of credence in most of those arguments. Thatās why I work a meta job, spend some of my free time on meta projects, and advise people toward meta giving when I canāincluding the foundation I work with, which recently made its first meta grant after decades of exclusively near-term giving.
(By the way, this was a good question! I didnāt even hint at this stuff in my original answer, and Iām glad for the chance to clarify my beliefs.)
So far, Iāve had modest success in building leverage through public donations ā¦
Thatās really cool!
I assumed that this would be most motivating/āinspiring if I gave to charities with clear paths to impact which my viewers could easily understand.
I share that impression, but also feel pretty uncertain about it, in particular if one actually thinks a cause area other than global health & dev is more pressing. In that case, it might be that public donations and framings focused on those other cause areasāor with less focus on any one cause areaāwould lead to fewer new EAs/āeffective givers, but a higher number focused on the more pressing cause areas. And that could be more valuable overall (depending on the details).
The reasons this alternative approach could lead to a higher number of new people focused on the more pressing cause areas are:
some decently common types of people (e.g., animal lovers + āproto-rationalistsā) will probably tend to find donations & framings focused on a cause area other than global health & dev more motivating/āconvincing
people who could end up going in any direction could be nudged one way or another by the first messages they see
Perhaps your efforts are premised on not thinking a cause area other than global health & dev is more pressing? (I think thatād be reasonable, though I personally think animal welfare and especially longtermism are more pressing. I only really make this comment at all because you imply that you think that giving to GiveWell and its recommended charities, while highly impactful, isnāt āoptimized for direct impactā.)
When I discuss EA in public, I try to focus more on general principles (āsome charities are better than othersā, āitās important to think about all the ways you could helpā) than specifically advocating for global dev work, though the latter does happen too.
And if someone sends me a private question about giving (which happens a lot now that Iāve made a big deal about it), I give similarly broad advice, and will often refer people to e.g. 80Kās Key Ideas page.
However, Iāve found over the course of the year that people seem not to care as much about the specific work of the charities I support as about the idea of doing something altruistic at all. In 2021, my public advocacy is likely to lean more meta/ālongtermist, though Iām not sure about the specifics.
Thanks for posting this, Michael!
Iāll be giving most of my donations ($25,000+) to GiveWell this year, with a smattering going to other global health charities (~$5000 split between AMF, GiveDirectly, Development Media International, and a few others). This amounts to roughly 22% of my income.
This plan isnāt meant to be optimized for direct impact. Because I only give a modest amount, I expect most of my impact to come from influencing others, so I try to optimize for āgiving in a way that Iām excited to shareā.
Specifically, almost all of this yearās giving comes from my success in tournament-level Magic: the Gathering, as well as revenues from streaming and exhibition events that followed from those tournaments. I publicized my choice to donate half of my tournament/āstreaming revenue, and I assumed that this would be most motivating/āinspiring if I gave to charities with clear paths to impact which my viewers could easily understand.
(Of course, I also believe that these charities are excellent, and I gave them heavy support before I ever became a streamer.)
So far, Iāve had modest success in building leverage through public donations. Someone claims to have matched my GiveWell donation (I havenāt verified this myself, but James Snowden did thank them, which is something), and one EAGxAsia-Pacific attendee told me they discovered EA at least in part because they saw me discuss it on Magic streams.
I also give $100/āmonth to the EA Infrastructure Fund, partly because I think meta work is the highest-leverage way to donate and partly so I can have the direct experience of being an EA Funds donor. Because I work for CEA, Iād like to āeat my own dog foodā (use the products I work on) in a few different ways.
Iād be curious to hear why you think that these charities are excellent; eg Iād be curious for your reply to the arguments here.
I respect cluelessness arguments enough that Iāve removed āstronglyā from āstrongly believeā in my response; I was just in an enthusiastic mood.
My giving to charities focused on short-term impact (and GiveWell in particular) is motivated by a few things:
I believe that my work currently generates much more value for CEA than the amount I donate to other charities, which means that almost all of my impact is likely of a meta/ālongtermist variety. But I am morally uncertain, and place enough credence on moral theories emphasizing short-term value that I want at least a fraction of my work to impact people who are alive today.
Around the time I joined CEA, I had been rapidly becoming more focused on the long term; had I taken some other non-EA job, I think that all or almost all of my donations would be going to meta causes as a way of getting long-term leverage. Instead, I get to hedge a bit with my donations.
Personal/āemotional factors. I sleep a bit better at night knowing that Iāve used my unusually lucky circumstances to provide something good for people who have been unusually unlucky. (In theory, I should also sleep worse because Iāve deprived longtermist projects of funding, but that isnāt how my brain works for some reason.)
Support for an especially well-run organization. I think that the quality of work done at GiveWell (from their charity reports and shared spreadsheets to their Mistakes page) puts them in a class of their own within EA, and I think that having orgs like this is a good thing for EA as a whole; to paraphrase Thomas Callaghan, āquality has a quality all its own.ā To the extent that GiveWell is a flagship org within the broader EA movement, one which will be the first introduction to EA for many people, I think itās good on a meta level for them to have more resources even if the marginal impact of those resources is lower than it might be for newer/āsmaller orgs.
I should clarify that my GiveWell donation will be going towards their operations, not the Maximum Impact Fund. If this helps them e.g. advertise more widely, I think thatās a solid meta investment.
This view is informed largely by my own experience; I would have taken much longer to enter EA (if Iād entered at all) had GiveWell not been around to show me that āyes, this movement can produce high-quality research in a way you can actually verify, and itās obvious that our charities crush much of the competition dollar-for-dollar.ā
I should also clarify that, by āexcellentā, I donāt so much mean āextremely high impactā as āhigh standard of quality in how the organization is runā.
Of course, that makes me Charity Navigator, so perhaps I should choose a different word.
Anyway, Iāve more than filled my āshort-term bucketā for this year and next; my future winnings will probably go to smaller projects (if I have time to evaluate them) or other potential āflagshipā orgs like 80,000 Hoursāwhich now seems to be the most common entry point into EA for people, serving the role that GiveWell did back when I got into EA. But this will, as before, depend on how well I think I can pitch them to a non-EA audience.
As for replying more directly to the arguments you linked: my views combine a bit of Khorton, a bit of both Aidan responses...
...and also, a lot of credence in most of those arguments. Thatās why I work a meta job, spend some of my free time on meta projects, and advise people toward meta giving when I canāincluding the foundation I work with, which recently made its first meta grant after decades of exclusively near-term giving.
(By the way, this was a good question! I didnāt even hint at this stuff in my original answer, and Iām glad for the chance to clarify my beliefs.)
Thatās really cool!
I share that impression, but also feel pretty uncertain about it, in particular if one actually thinks a cause area other than global health & dev is more pressing. In that case, it might be that public donations and framings focused on those other cause areasāor with less focus on any one cause areaāwould lead to fewer new EAs/āeffective givers, but a higher number focused on the more pressing cause areas. And that could be more valuable overall (depending on the details).
The reasons this alternative approach could lead to a higher number of new people focused on the more pressing cause areas are:
some decently common types of people (e.g., animal lovers + āproto-rationalistsā) will probably tend to find donations & framings focused on a cause area other than global health & dev more motivating/āconvincing
people who could end up going in any direction could be nudged one way or another by the first messages they see
Perhaps your efforts are premised on not thinking a cause area other than global health & dev is more pressing? (I think thatād be reasonable, though I personally think animal welfare and especially longtermism are more pressing. I only really make this comment at all because you imply that you think that giving to GiveWell and its recommended charities, while highly impactful, isnāt āoptimized for direct impactā.)
When I discuss EA in public, I try to focus more on general principles (āsome charities are better than othersā, āitās important to think about all the ways you could helpā) than specifically advocating for global dev work, though the latter does happen too.
And if someone sends me a private question about giving (which happens a lot now that Iāve made a big deal about it), I give similarly broad advice, and will often refer people to e.g. 80Kās Key Ideas page.
However, Iāve found over the course of the year that people seem not to care as much about the specific work of the charities I support as about the idea of doing something altruistic at all. In 2021, my public advocacy is likely to lean more meta/ālongtermist, though Iām not sure about the specifics.