First (half) year of being introduced to EA, super exciting to finally know that my donations have an impact :).
Hence I started this year very low with about 2% of my pre-tax income monthly to a local animal shelter, not knowing about EA.
Since August, I started my 10% pledge and donate to the German âcenterâ Effektiv Spenden with an even spread for their three funds for global health, climate change and animal welfare, and a very small part to the platform directly.
On top of that I gave away 50% of bonuses I will receive beginning of next year for tax purposes early, thatâs 4200⏠evenly spread between Against Malaria Foundation, Hellen Keller Int. and GiveDirectly. Global Health still has the strongest pull for me and I personally feel the strongest connection to GiveDirectly for how unique it is and how transparent their process is. Really makes you feel your impact and I like the idea of also improving lives dramatically instead of âjustâ keeping people alive under bad conditions, if that makes any sense. Some perspective for people on top of just getting by, if you will.
That being said, I will definitely think more about what causes to donate to. Especially democracy initiatives are something I am increasingly considering with the current situation in Europe, but maybe that will be on top of my 10% since I really donât know how effective that is and I might be a bit more ego-centric here wanting to do this locally.
Another âpain pointâ I will think about more is animal welfareâI read from many vegans that donating to it when not being vegan is hypocritical and I really get their point. Since I donât see myself becoming vegan in the near future, I might also drop that support since Iâm apparently not really behind the cause. But I will have to think about this a bit more. Maybe combining it with Climate Change by supporting The Good Food Institute or something like that, Iâm really not sure.
Lots of things to think about next year.
I havenât engaged with this topic much with relations to EA, this was more in a vegan context several years ago so that I donât have specific sources in mind off the top of my head. But itâs typically in the direction of âItâs like someone holding slaves while donating money against slaveryâ; or arguing that there is no such thing as merciful killing, so that just improving conditions is meaningless if we still hold them in cages and breed them just to eat/âexploit them. Like kicking dogs for fun and then doing things to âkick less dogsâ instead of stopping altogether, etc.
So itâs still stuck in my head as a hypocritical action from me, redirecting money from other causes to one I donât even personally live up to. I can imagine seeing more nuanced takes in an EA context, hence I want to read up on this more.