A New Resource for Effective Volunteerism & Activism in Minutes
I collected the most effective volunteerism/activism opportunities (actions) I could find and built a website called Doing Good Now, a one-stop shop for doing good, aiming to help people maximize their positive impact in minimized time.
I think Effective Altruism’s focus on philanthropy and careers is missing out on the room in people’s free time for making a positive impact, even if that free time is constrained to only a couple of minutes.
I created Doing Good Now after learning about the Humane League’s Fast Action Network (FAN), which makes animal advocacy effortless. It shocked me how much impact people can have in a minimal amount of time IF they are properly mobilized; the Humane League’s campaigns often receive responses from the target, earning it a spot among Animal Charity Evaluators’ recommended charities.
Moreover, think about all of the volunteer hours people altruistically spend on relatively low-impact ventures and how much more good they could achieve if their time were better optimized.
For example, think of all the volunteers handing water bottles to marathon runners and contrast them with the protesters at the Sunrise Movement, who are often credited as a serious cause of the Biden administration’s landmark climate legislation.
Doing Good Now’s offerings include recommendations for Animal Welfare, Global Health & Development, and Climate Change. It also aims to remedy EA’s lack of political action, which is a problem because legislative change can yield a substantial impact. Doing Good Now includes these actions alongside charitable funds and newsletters. While Giving What We Can already offers a selection of highly-effective charitable funds, my research indicates a meaningful disparity in effectiveness between some of their recommendations. Hence, I found it worth providing a further distilled list.
This is a really cool resource! Thanks so much for doing this.
I would guess that more people will check out the website if you mention it in the first paragraph/sentence of the post, and rephrase the title to communicate that you have created a new resource aggregating EA-relevant volunteer opportunities.
The compliments and feedback are highly appreciated. I have implemented your recommendations.
Readers may also be interested in EA Opportunities Board
Thanks, Nicholas!
I think it would be nice to have other causes besides factory farming, global health and development, and climate change, namely 80,000 Hours’ 4 most pressing problems:
Risks from AI.
Catastrophic pandemics.
Nuclear war.
Great power conflict.
Love this!
Hi Nicolas, thanks for making this, I think it’s a great idea!
In terms of animal welfare actions, I think the Humane League’s fast action network is mostly for US residents, though you might want to check with them. It could be good to clarify that on your website. Animal Justice is a canadian animal law advocacy organization that has the Animal Justice Academy, which is a canadian action collective (similar to THL’s fast action network, but for Canadian residents).
In general, a suggestion I have is to add a “suggest action” form on your website to allow others to submit ideas for you to review and add to the list.
This is fab! Now how can we get YOU some donations so that you can remove that awful .webflow. in your domain?!
This is fab! Now how can we get YOU some donations so that you can remove that awful .webflow. in your domain?!