Thanks for the comment- I might just field my best reply to these points and let Michelle chime in if I get any of it wrong!
I can totally understand your confusion- Giving What We Can does, in a great deal of its research, and its promotional material, focus on the project of eliminating extreme poverty. This is because we believe that projects that focus on the elimination of extreme poverty (the provision of bednets, or drugs for Schistosomiasis, ect) are one of the ways we can do the most good with our time and money. As you can imagine, it is hard to clearly communicate both the point that we are promoting the most effective charities alleviating poverty in the developing world and that we are choosing these charities because we think that giving money to them is plausibly the highest impact action people can take amongst all actions. Due in part to the difficulty of communicating both of these points simultaneously, we have generally focused our promotional material on the former, while always having the later as the core motivation. As Michelle mentioned, this is reflected in the Pledge which is explicitly cause neutral, and this reflects our belief that what defines us as an organisation is not merely a desire for people to give more to the most effective charities in the development space, but to all charities which reason and evidence suggests are likely to improve the world. We are currently undergoing the process of clarifying this point in our vision- roughly (and provisionally!) our new vision is: a world where giving 10% of your income to the most effective causes is the norm. This vision clearly ties into our previous vision of eliminating extreme poverty, as we believe that donations to the most effective charities that tackle extreme poverty represent -from a cause neutral point of view- some of the most effective ways for us to improve the world. After all, if we still have extreme poverty in a world where everyone is giving 10%, then we are probably doing it wrong!
In terms of confusion around branding for local groups, that the the product of two factors: 1) Giving What We Can for the last year and a half has been supporting the growth of both EA and GWWC groups, and 2) There are a number of different organisations in the local-group support space- including Giving What We Can, EAO and LEAN. The reason why there are both EA and Giving What We Can chapters is that different individuals choose to brand their groups differently- some individuals are most exited by the ideas and branding of Giving What We Can, with it’s focus on the pledge and extreme poverty, while others are most drawn to a general EA brand. In the case of Calgary, I know Reza was most exited by the Giving What We Can brand, and so went with that. We at Giving What We Can support both types of groups. All that being said, I agree this could definitely be clearer from the outside, and we will work on making it so!
I really enjoyed visiting all of you in Calgary last December, and hope to have the chance to visit again in the not too distant future! If you have any suggestions for how we can make the above considerations clearer, I would be super keen to get your input. Thanks for your questions, and thanks for helping to grow the movement!
Hi Jonathan,
I agree that if you’re goal is to “do the most good” that majority of EAs (myself included) believe that reducing extreme poverty is the most tractable/efficient way to do that at the current moment.
I think the main issue is that when people are learning about EA, if they find major discrepancies between GWWC currently stated mission (helping reduce poverty) and some materials like the blog post above (mission being do most good) it becomes difficult to figure out what’s going on.
One recommendation I have is that if a major rebranding effort is happening within GWWC, an email out to Pledge members/chapter leads etc., and blog post on GWWC’s blog and updating the various mission statements would be a good start. I was extremely surprised reading the post, when I follow many effective altruism forums/websites/materials and have never once seen GWWC even hinting at being cause neutral with the exception of the Pledge.
I find a good analogy for this situation is climate scientists, they are “cause neutral” when it comes to global warming, it just happens that all the science/facts point towards global warming being a real man made thing that should be addressed.
I’m very happy for the new direction, with GWWC being primarily focused on making the world a better place via donations to effective charities.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your comments.
Sorry to have been unclear—there isn’t a major rebranding planned. The changed vision should be thought of more as clarifying what lies at the heart of gwwc and what makes it unique. In large part, the reason for doing it is to further focus the team, rather than to change anything for others. It doesn’t mean that we plan to move away from working most on extreme poverty (for the reasons outlined in my more recent blog post). Ending extreme poverty is still a major focus for us (as it is for many EAs), but we wanted a vision that articulated why we work on that, and encapsulated the other things we care about.
I am planning to write a blog post about our vision on the GWWC blog in May, I’m glad that seems like a helpful thing to do.
Michelle
Hey Richard,
Thanks for the comment- I might just field my best reply to these points and let Michelle chime in if I get any of it wrong!
I can totally understand your confusion- Giving What We Can does, in a great deal of its research, and its promotional material, focus on the project of eliminating extreme poverty. This is because we believe that projects that focus on the elimination of extreme poverty (the provision of bednets, or drugs for Schistosomiasis, ect) are one of the ways we can do the most good with our time and money. As you can imagine, it is hard to clearly communicate both the point that we are promoting the most effective charities alleviating poverty in the developing world and that we are choosing these charities because we think that giving money to them is plausibly the highest impact action people can take amongst all actions. Due in part to the difficulty of communicating both of these points simultaneously, we have generally focused our promotional material on the former, while always having the later as the core motivation. As Michelle mentioned, this is reflected in the Pledge which is explicitly cause neutral, and this reflects our belief that what defines us as an organisation is not merely a desire for people to give more to the most effective charities in the development space, but to all charities which reason and evidence suggests are likely to improve the world. We are currently undergoing the process of clarifying this point in our vision- roughly (and provisionally!) our new vision is: a world where giving 10% of your income to the most effective causes is the norm. This vision clearly ties into our previous vision of eliminating extreme poverty, as we believe that donations to the most effective charities that tackle extreme poverty represent -from a cause neutral point of view- some of the most effective ways for us to improve the world. After all, if we still have extreme poverty in a world where everyone is giving 10%, then we are probably doing it wrong!
In terms of confusion around branding for local groups, that the the product of two factors: 1) Giving What We Can for the last year and a half has been supporting the growth of both EA and GWWC groups, and 2) There are a number of different organisations in the local-group support space- including Giving What We Can, EAO and LEAN. The reason why there are both EA and Giving What We Can chapters is that different individuals choose to brand their groups differently- some individuals are most exited by the ideas and branding of Giving What We Can, with it’s focus on the pledge and extreme poverty, while others are most drawn to a general EA brand. In the case of Calgary, I know Reza was most exited by the Giving What We Can brand, and so went with that. We at Giving What We Can support both types of groups. All that being said, I agree this could definitely be clearer from the outside, and we will work on making it so!
I really enjoyed visiting all of you in Calgary last December, and hope to have the chance to visit again in the not too distant future! If you have any suggestions for how we can make the above considerations clearer, I would be super keen to get your input. Thanks for your questions, and thanks for helping to grow the movement!
Hi Jonathan, I agree that if you’re goal is to “do the most good” that majority of EAs (myself included) believe that reducing extreme poverty is the most tractable/efficient way to do that at the current moment.
I think the main issue is that when people are learning about EA, if they find major discrepancies between GWWC currently stated mission (helping reduce poverty) and some materials like the blog post above (mission being do most good) it becomes difficult to figure out what’s going on.
One recommendation I have is that if a major rebranding effort is happening within GWWC, an email out to Pledge members/chapter leads etc., and blog post on GWWC’s blog and updating the various mission statements would be a good start. I was extremely surprised reading the post, when I follow many effective altruism forums/websites/materials and have never once seen GWWC even hinting at being cause neutral with the exception of the Pledge.
I find a good analogy for this situation is climate scientists, they are “cause neutral” when it comes to global warming, it just happens that all the science/facts point towards global warming being a real man made thing that should be addressed.
I’m very happy for the new direction, with GWWC being primarily focused on making the world a better place via donations to effective charities.
Richard
Hi Richard, Thanks for your comments. Sorry to have been unclear—there isn’t a major rebranding planned. The changed vision should be thought of more as clarifying what lies at the heart of gwwc and what makes it unique. In large part, the reason for doing it is to further focus the team, rather than to change anything for others. It doesn’t mean that we plan to move away from working most on extreme poverty (for the reasons outlined in my more recent blog post). Ending extreme poverty is still a major focus for us (as it is for many EAs), but we wanted a vision that articulated why we work on that, and encapsulated the other things we care about. I am planning to write a blog post about our vision on the GWWC blog in May, I’m glad that seems like a helpful thing to do. Michelle