“Furthermore, psychologically, earning-to-give seems to me to be a better fit for the average EA than direct work. Many EAs are already working in a company and can simply move to donate more of their salary or focus on increasing their salary, rather than quit their job and start a new one.”
I want to expand what’s in the second sentence here. There are a substantial number of EAs already working at a job that they like, that makes them enough money to be able to reasonably donate lots of it. But most of them are probably over 25. Which is only half of EAs—according to this survey the median age is 25.
So since probably much of 80k’s audience is still choosing their career from an earlier stage, like still-in-university or fresh-out-and-unemployed or haven’t-chosen-a-major-yet, it makes sense to me that 80k wouldn’t emphasize earn to give for these people.
I’m also not sure the 15% funding the 85% quite holds. CFAR, for example, gets lots of donations but also gets money from people attending workshops. I don’t know the details, but I’d expect object-level charities like AMF to be able to have fairly wide appeal and to therefore get a decent amount of money from people who don’t identify as EAs. I’m not actually confident on that point and would welcome evidence in any direction about it.
I don’t know the details, but I’d expect object-level charities like AMF to be able to have fairly wide appeal and to therefore get a decent amount of money from people who don’t identify as EAs.
They can, but the idea is with organizations like AMF and GiveDirectly is they can absorb relatively massive amounts of donations, and still be the best bang for anyone’s buck. I.e., even if Givewell’s top recommended charities can receive lots of money from both within and outside of effective altruism, they’ll still turn out to be the most effective. Of course, this will depend on which cause your prioritize. As Tom Ash commented:
I’m one of the people who Peter mentioned as favouring direct poverty relief—and there are an awful lot of poor people out there.
I want to expand what’s in the second sentence here. There are a substantial number of EAs already working at a job that they like, that makes them enough money to be able to reasonably donate lots of it. But most of them are probably over 25. Which is only half of EAs—according to this survey the median age is 25.
So since probably much of 80k’s audience is still choosing their career from an earlier stage, like still-in-university or fresh-out-and-unemployed or haven’t-chosen-a-major-yet, it makes sense to me that 80k wouldn’t emphasize earn to give for these people.
I’m also not sure the 15% funding the 85% quite holds. CFAR, for example, gets lots of donations but also gets money from people attending workshops. I don’t know the details, but I’d expect object-level charities like AMF to be able to have fairly wide appeal and to therefore get a decent amount of money from people who don’t identify as EAs. I’m not actually confident on that point and would welcome evidence in any direction about it.
They can, but the idea is with organizations like AMF and GiveDirectly is they can absorb relatively massive amounts of donations, and still be the best bang for anyone’s buck. I.e., even if Givewell’s top recommended charities can receive lots of money from both within and outside of effective altruism, they’ll still turn out to be the most effective. Of course, this will depend on which cause your prioritize. As Tom Ash commented: