Rakean Radya Al Barra. Also known as Red.
RakeanRed
Karma: 31
Launching Efektif Berbagi, an Effective Giving Organization in Indonesia
Was reviewing this for making social media content for my EA University Group and I have a potentially stupid question about the equality principle. If we collectively decide to pick up the most ‘objectively’ important-tractable-neglected spheres of impact, what guarantee is there that the outcome is ultimately better than if we ‘selfishly’ decided to contribute to those of our personal interest (such as the leukemia example or things involving close relatives, for instance)?
Something’s telling me that at the end of the day, the ‘invisible hand’ of altruism will eventually allocate ‘equally’ rather than having a narrative that pushes people towards certain directions (though I know this is probably unquantifiable empirically). I just tend to think that having a certain bias is not only okay, but necessary, as we may have personal responsibility over certain spheres rather than others and hence totally impartiality would lack effectivity in the super-long-run.
What do you guys think?
Hi Ben!
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! Great question regarding GiveWell’s Zakat Fund.
From my understanding, while we’d certainly be open to promoting GiveWell’s Zakat options (and likely will in the next campaign!) our focus on the more non-zakat (the “-ISWAF”) funds comes from a mix of constraints we face on the ground such as:
Regulatory & Legal Barriers: We currently don’t have the regulatory status that allows us to collect zakat, which means we are technically limited to just promoting the funds rather than facilitating collection.
Psychological Preference for Local Giving: There is a strong cultural expectation for local distribution for zakat. Ultimately, we’d love to have highly cost-effective local zakat options, but that requires a level of rigorous charity evaluation involving the existing ZISWAF orgs.
Flexibility: Focusing our efforts on the non-zakat funds enables us to prioritize cost-effectiveness without needing to navigate the complex theological and operational criteria required for zakat.
So, while GiveWell’s Zakat Fund is a fantastic tool that we’ll definitely mention to our future audience in the right contexts, focusing on the broader and more flexible non-zakat pool gives us a clearer path to execution (at least in these early stages!)