My personal donation budget is down this year, owing to several family issues I’ve had to pour money into. I’ve focused more on maintaining support for smaller organizations, for whom curtailing support at the three-to-four figure level feels more likely to have a perceptible impact.
My largest donation will be to @NickLaing’s OneDay Health. I feel relatively well-equipped to evaluate OneDay. I consulted on the cost-effectiveness analysis posted here early this year, and thought it rather convincing for a smaller organization (even after applying a downward adjustment for early-stage CEAs). I am impressed with Nick personally from his participation on the Forum and conversations I’ve had with him directly, and I think evaluating the founder is an important element to evaluating smaller organizations. There are other object-level considerations that influenced my decision,[1] and it is a more legible organization to people whose donations I might be able to influence.[2]
I’m also donating to Legal Impact for Chickens (marginal funding explanation here), partly as a sort of penance and disgorgement for eating meat. I eat too much processed food for convenience (sigh, I know...) and it’s hard to find such foods with products from animals who have lived at least net-neutral lives.[3] As for why to contribute to LIC specifically, I’m a US-based lawyer and thus feel better qualified than most EAs to evaluate LIC’s work. Also, as someone who is newer to the animal-welfare giving space, it’s reassuring that LIC’s method of action (i.e., suing corporations who mistreat animals) is obviously resistant to humanewashing.
(This isn’t a complete list of donations to which I intend to give.)
That most of the health centers’ operating costs are covered by user fees not only increases leverage but demonstrates that the beneficiaries actually value what OneDay is doing. The existence of significant beneficiary net savings on transportation costs and avoidance of lost work time seems highly likely, and creates a floor value for OneDay’s effectiveness (viewing it as akin to a program that makes tiny cash transfers to ill rural Ugandans).
E.g., I am planning to pitch OneDay to my church for its Good Friday offering, as it is more legible to that audience than standard EA charities for several reasons. I think demonstrating significant skin in the game would help with that pitch.
I’ve seen some calculations for offsetting one’s animal-product consumption—but I have a diverse moral parliament with significant virtue-ethics representation. I don’t think it is virtuous to benefit from animals being treated in net-harmful ways, by paying lower prices for processed food and out-of-home meals than I would have paid for net-neutral welfare animal products had they been more readily available to me. Another way of looking at it is that a de minimis offset would contribute to poor epistemics on my part, either because I know I’m still financially benefitting from mistreatment of animals or because paying a few dollars as an offset feels like trivializing the issue.
Wow thanks so much for these encouraging words Jason, myself and the whole team at OneDay Health appreciate it.
The great thing about people writing about their donations is that it gives us practitioners a confidence and energy boost. Having smart and thoughtful people like @Jason decide to send their hard earned cash in our direction, and then write a bit about why gives us the best end/start to the year possible—and also adds a little bit of healthy pressure and accountability to me personally at the turn of a new year of launching new health centers and reaching increasing numbers of people in remote rural areas with quality healhtcare.
Anyway, perhaps a bit cheesy for an EA forum comment but I can assure you it is sincere ;).
My personal donation budget is down this year, owing to several family issues I’ve had to pour money into. I’ve focused more on maintaining support for smaller organizations, for whom curtailing support at the three-to-four figure level feels more likely to have a perceptible impact.
My largest donation will be to @NickLaing’s OneDay Health. I feel relatively well-equipped to evaluate OneDay. I consulted on the cost-effectiveness analysis posted here early this year, and thought it rather convincing for a smaller organization (even after applying a downward adjustment for early-stage CEAs). I am impressed with Nick personally from his participation on the Forum and conversations I’ve had with him directly, and I think evaluating the founder is an important element to evaluating smaller organizations. There are other object-level considerations that influenced my decision,[1] and it is a more legible organization to people whose donations I might be able to influence.[2]
I’m also donating to Legal Impact for Chickens (marginal funding explanation here), partly as a sort of penance and disgorgement for eating meat. I eat too much processed food for convenience (sigh, I know...) and it’s hard to find such foods with products from animals who have lived at least net-neutral lives.[3] As for why to contribute to LIC specifically, I’m a US-based lawyer and thus feel better qualified than most EAs to evaluate LIC’s work. Also, as someone who is newer to the animal-welfare giving space, it’s reassuring that LIC’s method of action (i.e., suing corporations who mistreat animals) is obviously resistant to humanewashing.
(This isn’t a complete list of donations to which I intend to give.)
That most of the health centers’ operating costs are covered by user fees not only increases leverage but demonstrates that the beneficiaries actually value what OneDay is doing. The existence of significant beneficiary net savings on transportation costs and avoidance of lost work time seems highly likely, and creates a floor value for OneDay’s effectiveness (viewing it as akin to a program that makes tiny cash transfers to ill rural Ugandans).
E.g., I am planning to pitch OneDay to my church for its Good Friday offering, as it is more legible to that audience than standard EA charities for several reasons. I think demonstrating significant skin in the game would help with that pitch.
I’ve seen some calculations for offsetting one’s animal-product consumption—but I have a diverse moral parliament with significant virtue-ethics representation. I don’t think it is virtuous to benefit from animals being treated in net-harmful ways, by paying lower prices for processed food and out-of-home meals than I would have paid for net-neutral welfare animal products had they been more readily available to me. Another way of looking at it is that a de minimis offset would contribute to poor epistemics on my part, either because I know I’m still financially benefitting from mistreatment of animals or because paying a few dollars as an offset feels like trivializing the issue.
Wow thanks so much for these encouraging words Jason, myself and the whole team at OneDay Health appreciate it.
The great thing about people writing about their donations is that it gives us practitioners a confidence and energy boost. Having smart and thoughtful people like @Jason decide to send their hard earned cash in our direction, and then write a bit about why gives us the best end/start to the year possible—and also adds a little bit of healthy pressure and accountability to me personally at the turn of a new year of launching new health centers and reaching increasing numbers of people in remote rural areas with quality healhtcare.
Anyway, perhaps a bit cheesy for an EA forum comment but I can assure you it is sincere ;).