London GWWC group co-lead: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/london
Organiser of the EY Effective Altruism workplace group and EA London Quarterly Review coworking sessions.
Original EA Taskmaster https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9qcnrRD3ZHSwibtBC/ea-taskmaster-game
In my day job, I’m an accountant turned product person in tax technology.
Great work making this happen!
Running late but will be there for first pom at 11
Thank you for sharing this! It is really brave to share but I think it is valuable to have concrete examples of the value they provide
I read this more like the guy was lonely and wanted community so was looking for some kind of secular religion to provide grounding to his life.
I personally think people overrate people’s stated reasons for extreme behaviour and underrate the material circumstances of their life. In particular, loneliness https://time.com/6223229/loneliness-vulnerable-extremist-views/
(would genuinely be interested to hear counter arguments to this! I’m not a researcher so honestly no idea how to go about testing that hypothesis)
I’ve had similar thoughts. My hunch is that the demographic this messaging would land particularly well with would be wealthy older women.
Somewhat related post about lead in the UK: https://ukdayone.org/briefings/a-hidden-epidemic-addressing-childhood-lead-poisoning-in-the-uk
Sorry to hear that you’re having a rough time!
When I’m feeling like this, I find that the only thing that helps is actually finishing a project end-to-end so I feel momentum.
Something I intrinsically think is valuable but wasn’t going to get done otherwise. (Like improving wikis or cleaning up a mess in a park).
Going as small as possible while still being satisfying helps remind me that there are things within my control and people around me that I can help.
I also liked this post from FarmKind
I personally think of it similarly to wearing my pledge pin irl. I don’t use emojis to signal anything else.
Imo I’d only really push you to add it on LinkedIn:
Users are often wealthy or status seeking people doing business development work
LinkedIn is a reasonable place to signal association with a particular brand ie. Giving What We Can.
If you’ve got an impressive / high status CV then that adds credibility to GWWC
It is a marketing to a more risk averse segment and signalling that this is already a movement with momentum
It makes it less cringe for future pledgers to add the emoji and perhaps do further advocacy for effective giving
Useful post.
I think basic accounting ratios and financial analysis are quite helpful for getting a basic view on return on donations and high level valuations of charities.
This is a decent high level overview: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fundamentalanalysis.asp
However, I do think this post underrates the value of assets.
Increased cost effectiveness over time usually comes from investment in quality assets (I’d include staff costs as assets - for management accounting purposes not for external financial reporting purposes).
Does AIM publish any estimates on the valuation of its IP and other intangible assets?
I think there was a conservative counterfactual estimate of the value of a founder somewhere too.
I’d say there’s a decent number of highly effective charities with very valuable IP that are too leveraged on the output of very few staff members.
This makes them riskier and more exposed to shocks.
Quite frankly I’d rather they fundraised more than they needed and hired extra staff / had more in reserves for contractors than continue to run lean.
I’d say this is missing where GiveDirectly is extremely cost effective.
Their corporate and government friendly brand.
If they can turn the tide on cash-transfers being the benchmark for foreign aid (and maybe even internal government policy) then that might change the game in terms of political efficacy.
Your visuals are awesome Alex.
EA designers—we need you 🫵🏻
Agree with this take ⬆️
My mental health has greatly improved since joining EA and I think that’s because:
the culture encourages having an internal locus of control (or being agentic) which is associated with better mental health outcomes
it faced me with the reality that I’m incredibly privileged in global terms so I should be using that to help others rather than feeling sorry for myself
helping others is intrinsically satisfying
I do think there’s more that could be done to develop psychological safety and remind people that their intrinsic value is separate from their instrumental value to the EA movement.
This is why I do community building work.
Idk I’m not a maximiser but I do think it’s useful to have barriers to entry that require strong signals of shared values. I’m not interested in running a social club for privileged people that aren’t actually contributing money and/or labour into EA causes.
I think most EAs living in rich countries should by default be working normal jobs while donating 10% and contributing to EA projects on the side. That does help calibrate with the wider world.
For the tax nerds, cool event next week from the OECD:
Tax Inspectors Without Borders: A decade of niche assistance to developing countries
12 March 2024 | 13:45 − 14:45 CET
https://www.tiwb.org/resources/events/oecd-tax-and-development-days-2025-tiwb-a-decade-of-niche-assistance-to-developing-countries.htm