I am a retired software guy. I’m here to learn more about being as effective as possible with my donations, and also just out of curiosity about the subject.
TomAtlanta
Karma: 22
What is the easiest way to stop all the charitable junk mail?
I read the link to “Is effective altruism growing? An update on the stock of funding vs. people”
I don’t understand this:
How much funding is committed to effective altruism (going forward)? Around $46 billion.
Do you mean $46 billion to all effective altruism groups, or the researchers, or what? As it is used in this forum, does EA refer to a particular group that uses this forum, or effective altruism in general?
I hope my comment comes across as curious rather than judgemental.
Is this the most effective use of our money? Flying a long distance to go to an in person conference? What if you stayed home and gave the money you would spend on the conference to an effective charity?
Just asking as I get into the whole EA mindset. I spend a lot of money on luxuries that could be better spent on charity. I don’t look down on anyone who chooses to spend money to go to this conference. Curious about your thoughts on this.
No replies to my question. Maybe because the two groups are so similar. I may just split my donations between the two groups and forget about the small amount of money lost to the extra expense of processing two donations rather than one. Or I might just pick one at random.
[Question] Givewell vs. The Life You Can Save
When I donate to Life You Save, the money is divided equally and goes to their 22 highest rated charities. Is this inefficient?
Givewell has something similar. You can donate monthly to Givewell and have them forward the money to several different charities from their list. Is this inefficient?
“Often the overhead on processing a small donation can be fairly high, so it could be worth donating to fewer organisations so that your donations to those you give to are larger.”
I am donating $50 automatically each month to each of the 5 organizations. Would it make much of a difference if I just picked one and donated $250/month to it? How much of a difference? How much is the overhead on processing automatic monthly donations?
Thanks for the info. I had never heard of Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Bankman-Fried. I just read about them on wikipedia. Now it makes more sense.