I’m seeing a lot of accusations flying around in this thread (e.g. cynical, aggressive, enemy action, secret info etc.). This doesn’t strike me as a ‘scout mindset’ and I was glad to see Bruce’s comment that “it’s important to recognise that everyone here does share the same overarching goal of “how do we do good better”.
HLI has always been transparent about our goals and future plans. The front page of our website seems clear to me:
The Happier Lives Institute connects donors, researchers, and policymakers with the most cost-effective opportunities to increase global wellbeing.
Our recommended charity for 2022 is StrongMinds, a non-profit providing cheap, effective treatment for women struggling with depression in Uganda and Zambia.
Our research agenda is also very clear about our priorities:
Area 1: Foundational research into the measurement of wellbeing Area 2: Applied research to identify and evaluate the most cost-effective ways to increase wellbeing Area 3: Understanding the wider global priorities context
And our 2022 charity recommendation post makes it clear that we plan to investigate a wider range of interventions and charities in 2023:
So far, we’ve looked at four ‘micro-interventions’, those where you help one person at a time. These were all in low-income countries. However, it’s highly unlikely that we’ve found the best ways to improve happiness already. Phase 2 is to expand our search.
We already have a pipeline of promising charities and interventions to analyse next year:
Interventions we want to evaluate: air pollution, child development, digital mental health, and surgery for cataracts and fistula repair.
We have a long list of charities and interventions that we won’t get to in 2023 but plan to examine in future years. Eventually, we plan to consider systemic interventions and policy reforms that could affect the wellbeing of larger populations at all income levels. There’s plenty to do!
My role as Communications Manager is to communicate the findings from our research to decision-makers to help them allocate their resources more effectively. There’s nothing suspicious about doing that in Giving Season. That’s what all the charity evaluators do.
We only recommend one charity because StrongMinds is the most cost-effective charity we’ve identified (so far) and they have a $20m funding gap which is very unlikely to be filled in this giving season. GiveWell has a lot more money to allocate so they have to find multiple charities with room for more funding. I hope that HLI will face (and solve) that problem in the future too!
In my personal opinion, GiveWell has been hugely successful and inspirational but it’s clear that their methodology cannot handle interventions that have benefits beyond health and wealth. That’s why HLI is bringing the WELLBY methodology from the academic and policy world into the global health field. It’s the same reason that Open Philanthropy ran an essay prize to find suggestions for measuring non-health, non-pecuniary benefits. Our entry to that competition set out the pros AND the cons of the WELLBY approach as well as our plans for further foundational research on subjective wellbeing measures.
There’s a lot more I could say, but this comment is already getting too long. The key thing I want to get across is that if you (the reader) are confused about HLI’s mission, strategy, or research findings, then please talk to us. I’m always happy to talk to people about HLI’s work on a call or via email.
I’m seeing a lot of accusations flying around in this thread (e.g. cynical, aggressive, enemy action, secret info etc.). This doesn’t strike me as a ‘scout mindset’ and I was glad to see Bruce’s comment that “it’s important to recognise that everyone here does share the same overarching goal of “how do we do good better”.
HLI has always been transparent about our goals and future plans. The front page of our website seems clear to me:
Our research agenda is also very clear about our priorities:
And our 2022 charity recommendation post makes it clear that we plan to investigate a wider range of interventions and charities in 2023:
My role as Communications Manager is to communicate the findings from our research to decision-makers to help them allocate their resources more effectively. There’s nothing suspicious about doing that in Giving Season. That’s what all the charity evaluators do.
We only recommend one charity because StrongMinds is the most cost-effective charity we’ve identified (so far) and they have a $20m funding gap which is very unlikely to be filled in this giving season. GiveWell has a lot more money to allocate so they have to find multiple charities with room for more funding. I hope that HLI will face (and solve) that problem in the future too!
In my personal opinion, GiveWell has been hugely successful and inspirational but it’s clear that their methodology cannot handle interventions that have benefits beyond health and wealth. That’s why HLI is bringing the WELLBY methodology from the academic and policy world into the global health field. It’s the same reason that Open Philanthropy ran an essay prize to find suggestions for measuring non-health, non-pecuniary benefits. Our entry to that competition set out the pros AND the cons of the WELLBY approach as well as our plans for further foundational research on subjective wellbeing measures.
There’s a lot more I could say, but this comment is already getting too long. The key thing I want to get across is that if you (the reader) are confused about HLI’s mission, strategy, or research findings, then please talk to us. I’m always happy to talk to people about HLI’s work on a call or via email.