EA has become extraordinarily good at identifying the charities that do the most good per dollar. But it seems to have developed a serious blind spot: it cares far too much about which 4 high impact charities are better than other high impact charities... and far too little about what will actually inspire ordinary people to give.
Consider Malaria Consortium. Its seasonal malaria prevention program is undoubtedly highly effective. But imagine approaching an ordinary person and asking them to donate to a charity that gives young children preventative drugs that sound rather like chemotherapy, for a condition that no one knows the details of. Cue questions, confusion, and an uphill sales pitch.
Yet this is precisely the first specific charity recommendation highlighted by GiveWell, Giving What We Can, AND One for the World. Seriously? Is this really where we want to start when introducing someone to effective giving?
Compare that with restoring someone's eyesight through cataract surgery, or helping women recover from devastating childbirth injuries. These are tangible, understandable, profoundly moving interventions. People immediately grasp the problem, the solution, and why they should care.
High impact organizations such as Seva, Fred Hollows Foundation, and Fistula Foundation offer exactly these kinds of compelling entry points.
And The Life You Can Save is an outstanding example of what more effective-giving organizations should aspire to be: making highly effective charities accessible, understandable and appealing to a much broader audience, while maintaining a serious commitment to evidence and impact.
The strategic opportunity is enormous. Why not keep championing the very top recommendations for committed EA donors, while giving a much wider portfolio of excellent charities a prominent role in mainstream outreach?
Instead, EA prefers to be an insiders' club, ignoring ordinary people (and also ignoring the possible benefits of taking a broader approach to world problems).
The irony is extraordinary: in trying to maximize the impact of every donated dollar, EA is missing millions of people (and millions of dollars).
Stop confusing intellectual infatuation with effective outreach. Stop treating popular appeal as somehow less sophisticated than cost-effectiveness analysis.
If EA genuinely wants to change the world, it needs to spend less time pleasing itself and a lot more time figuring out what makes the rest of humanity want to help.
Effective giving isn't just a wonderful end in itself; it's also one of the most powerful gateways into the broader EA movement. Get people excited about making a tangible difference in the world, and you create opportunities to introduce them to the other crucial challenges EA cares about — such as AI safety / global catastrophic risks. We desperately need more people engaged with these issues, too. But first, we need to give them a reason to walk through the door. Effective giving shouldn't be the neglected shop window of EA. It should be one of its greatest ambassadors.
PS this is a more succinct & stronger version of a first draft I did here last week:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pHHfsGALJqgGsKWfB/ea-s-on-ramp-gap-the-most-effective-charity-isn-t-always-the
Read ^that if you want to go a bit more into the weeds & details.
Thank you for any feedback on the ideas.Â