Cool list! I’m surprised there aren’t more organisations on this list that meet at least one of your three criteria.
Some comments below and further examples that focus mostly on animal advocacy, because it’s the area I’m most knowledgeable about, but could probably be applied similarly to other cause areas. I’m partly sharing these comments because we use similar criteria to work out which organisations to focus Animal Advocacy Careers’ research on (e.g. our spot-check of nonprofit roles, and we have a survey we’re going to send out in the next few weeks), and I’m interested in feedback.
I don’t think this is a useful or even possible distinction to make, since many organisations lie on a continuum of commitment to EA values.
Agreed. It get’s pretty messy, whichever criteria you use, because all are subjective. I tend to think of the two main criteria as:
(1) Explicit identification and alignment with the goals and principles of effective altruism.
(2) High cost-effectiveness.
Are currently recommended by GiveWell or Animal Charity Evaluators
This is one group’s judgement on goal (2). For Animal Advocacy Careers, I’ve been using the slightly looser definition of any organisations that are currently or formerly “Top Charities” or “Standout charities.” This would add quite a few to your list.
Animal Equality
Compassion in World Farming USA
Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations
Humane Society of the United States Farm Animal Protection Campaign
L214
Mercy For Animals
New Harvest
Nonhuman Rights Project
ProVeg International
Sinergia Animal
Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira
Vegan Outreach
If you wanted to broaden/loosen the criteria a bit further (but still use evaluations by external groups, rather than your own judgement), the next steps might be:
Including any groups that have received grants by other highly EA-aligned grant-making bodies, e.g. ACE, EA Funds (we’re not using this criterion, in part because both of these groups tend to make more speculative bets, including to smaller organisations, and in part just because it would probably give us a really long list of organisations to contact for the survey)
Something we umm and arr about is whether to include any/all groups who participate in the (The Humane League-coordinated) Open Wing Alliance. (Not including in our forthcoming survey.)
Have explicitly aligned themselves with EA
Similar to my (1) but your definition is a bit narrower, I think. I think that there are a large number of organisations that would fit this criterion to some extent. Groups from your list who fit this, in my opinion:
Veganuary
Sentience Politics
Global Food Partners
Aquatic Life Institute
50by40
Credence Institute
Farmed Animal Funders
But also, most of the organisations on the list above of ACE current or former top or standout charities (perhaps especially Mercy For Animals, Animal Equality, and ProVeg). Again, many of the orgs in the Open Wing Alliance arguably fit this criterion.
Were incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship
Interesting. I guess this is a proxy for both my (1) and (2)? Credence Institute fit this criterion.
Have engaged with the EA community (e.g. by posting on the EA Forum or attending EA Global)
This seems veeeery broad and I imagine there are lots that would be added by this criterion. Personally I wouldn’t use it. Some that I can remember off the top of my head that fit this:
Pour l’Égalité Animale
Compassion in World Farming
Veganuary (again)
But I’m sure there are many more, I just haven’t been tracking it.
Lower importance comment: Given that both 80,000 Hours and Animal Charity Evaluators are in “Infrastructure,” I’d put Animal Advocacy Careers in that category too. Maybe also WANBAM and CEEALAR. I’d also reclassify Sentience Institute as “Far future” since that is our focus, even if our work to date has mostly focused on animal advocacy(e.g.s of twoexceptions); we have forthcoming work on artificial sentience, for example.
I’ve been using the slightly looser definition of any organisations that are currently or formerly “Top Charities” or “Standout charities.” This would add quite a few to your list.
I had quite a debate about whether to expand the list to some of these charities. I decided against it in the end in order to keep the list to a manageable length (for both me and people reading it).
Veganuary
Sentience Politics
Global Food Partners
Aquatic Life Institute
50by40
Credence Institute
Farmed Animal Funders
Good suggestions! I already had ALI on the list but the rest I hadn’t heard of/realised that they aligned with EA. I’ll make some additions to the list!
This seems veeeery broad and I imagine there are lots that would be added by this criterion. Personally I wouldn’t use it.
Yeah, I can see that there’s a fair amount of randomness introduced by this criterion (I obviously haven’t attended every EA Global or read every EA Forum post). However, I like that it allows for the addition of orgs that I know definitely apply EA thinking but don’t necessarily mention EA on their website.
Thanks again for your comment. Sorry this reply is a bit late and hope the survey went well!
Cool list! I’m surprised there aren’t more organisations on this list that meet at least one of your three criteria.
Some comments below and further examples that focus mostly on animal advocacy, because it’s the area I’m most knowledgeable about, but could probably be applied similarly to other cause areas. I’m partly sharing these comments because we use similar criteria to work out which organisations to focus Animal Advocacy Careers’ research on (e.g. our spot-check of nonprofit roles, and we have a survey we’re going to send out in the next few weeks), and I’m interested in feedback.
Agreed. It get’s pretty messy, whichever criteria you use, because all are subjective. I tend to think of the two main criteria as:
(1) Explicit identification and alignment with the goals and principles of effective altruism.
(2) High cost-effectiveness.
This is one group’s judgement on goal (2). For Animal Advocacy Careers, I’ve been using the slightly looser definition of any organisations that are currently or formerly “Top Charities” or “Standout charities.” This would add quite a few to your list.
Animal Equality
Compassion in World Farming USA
Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations
Humane Society of the United States Farm Animal Protection Campaign
L214
Mercy For Animals
New Harvest
Nonhuman Rights Project
ProVeg International
Sinergia Animal
Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira
Vegan Outreach
If you wanted to broaden/loosen the criteria a bit further (but still use evaluations by external groups, rather than your own judgement), the next steps might be:
Including any groups that have received grants by Open Philanthropy (we’re planning to include this criterion for our survey, notwithstanding a couple of other exclusion criteria)
Including any groups that have received grants by other highly EA-aligned grant-making bodies, e.g. ACE, EA Funds (we’re not using this criterion, in part because both of these groups tend to make more speculative bets, including to smaller organisations, and in part just because it would probably give us a really long list of organisations to contact for the survey)
Something we umm and arr about is whether to include any/all groups who participate in the (The Humane League-coordinated) Open Wing Alliance. (Not including in our forthcoming survey.)
Similar to my (1) but your definition is a bit narrower, I think. I think that there are a large number of organisations that would fit this criterion to some extent. Groups from your list who fit this, in my opinion:
Veganuary
Sentience Politics
Global Food Partners
Aquatic Life Institute
50by40
Credence Institute
Farmed Animal Funders
But also, most of the organisations on the list above of ACE current or former top or standout charities (perhaps especially Mercy For Animals, Animal Equality, and ProVeg). Again, many of the orgs in the Open Wing Alliance arguably fit this criterion.
Interesting. I guess this is a proxy for both my (1) and (2)? Credence Institute fit this criterion.
This seems veeeery broad and I imagine there are lots that would be added by this criterion. Personally I wouldn’t use it. Some that I can remember off the top of my head that fit this:
Pour l’Égalité Animale
Compassion in World Farming
Veganuary (again)
But I’m sure there are many more, I just haven’t been tracking it.
Lower importance comment: Given that both 80,000 Hours and Animal Charity Evaluators are in “Infrastructure,” I’d put Animal Advocacy Careers in that category too. Maybe also WANBAM and CEEALAR. I’d also reclassify Sentience Institute as “Far future” since that is our focus, even if our work to date has mostly focused on animal advocacy(e.g.s of two exceptions); we have forthcoming work on artificial sentience, for example.
Thank you for this Jamie!
I had quite a debate about whether to expand the list to some of these charities. I decided against it in the end in order to keep the list to a manageable length (for both me and people reading it).
Good suggestions! I already had ALI on the list but the rest I hadn’t heard of/realised that they aligned with EA. I’ll make some additions to the list!
Yeah, I can see that there’s a fair amount of randomness introduced by this criterion (I obviously haven’t attended every EA Global or read every EA Forum post). However, I like that it allows for the addition of orgs that I know definitely apply EA thinking but don’t necessarily mention EA on their website.
Thanks again for your comment. Sorry this reply is a bit late and hope the survey went well!