In addition to finding ODH’s cost-effectiveness analysis very promising, one thing I like about its value proposition is how concrete it is to non-EAs. It may be even more legible than GiveDirectly, because the good of “treating kids and others for malaria and other stuff” is perhaps even more obvious than “giving money to poor people” (the effectiveness of which requires at least some additional context to show that the recipients spend money in ways that substantially furthers their long-term welfare).
I think talking about organizations like ODH can be a great introduction to charity effectiveness for a broad non-EA audience, in certain low-bandwidth environments, or with certain people. You have identifiable beneficiaries with a very high probability of benefitting from the intervention (and even stories on ODH’s website), so you don’t have to get your audience to become comfortable with the idea of more abstract benefits right away. You can offer very concrete examples of what the donor’s money does—e.g., $1.11 subsidizes the treatment of three patients who would have otherwise not received treatment or would have had to spend substantially more to receive treatment at a distant facility, $87.50 subsidizes the operating costs of a health center for a whole month, etc.
I think getting a donor to rigorously consider effectiveness for the first time is a major win, and I like the idea of having options like ODH that make that as psychologically easy for the donor as possible. I suggest the feedback loop between cognition and action is more two-way than our theories of change sometimes recognize, and so having options that make it easy for donors to make a first effective donation is important.
In the interests of full disclosure, I not only offered comments on Nick’s post but also made a donation to OneDay Health US last month to stand up a new health center. In addition to concluding that the case for cost-effectiveness was good, I felt that both the EA and non-EA ecosystems don’t have a lot of good funders for most micro-sized global health non-profits. And I thought I had a few comparative advantages to evaluating the case for a nanogrant here.
In addition to finding ODH’s cost-effectiveness analysis very promising, one thing I like about its value proposition is how concrete it is to non-EAs. It may be even more legible than GiveDirectly, because the good of “treating kids and others for malaria and other stuff” is perhaps even more obvious than “giving money to poor people” (the effectiveness of which requires at least some additional context to show that the recipients spend money in ways that substantially furthers their long-term welfare).
I think talking about organizations like ODH can be a great introduction to charity effectiveness for a broad non-EA audience, in certain low-bandwidth environments, or with certain people. You have identifiable beneficiaries with a very high probability of benefitting from the intervention (and even stories on ODH’s website), so you don’t have to get your audience to become comfortable with the idea of more abstract benefits right away. You can offer very concrete examples of what the donor’s money does—e.g., $1.11 subsidizes the treatment of three patients who would have otherwise not received treatment or would have had to spend substantially more to receive treatment at a distant facility, $87.50 subsidizes the operating costs of a health center for a whole month, etc.
I think getting a donor to rigorously consider effectiveness for the first time is a major win, and I like the idea of having options like ODH that make that as psychologically easy for the donor as possible. I suggest the feedback loop between cognition and action is more two-way than our theories of change sometimes recognize, and so having options that make it easy for donors to make a first effective donation is important.
In the interests of full disclosure, I not only offered comments on Nick’s post but also made a donation to OneDay Health US last month to stand up a new health center. In addition to concluding that the case for cost-effectiveness was good, I felt that both the EA and non-EA ecosystems don’t have a lot of good funders for most micro-sized global health non-profits. And I thought I had a few comparative advantages to evaluating the case for a nanogrant here.