I really love Charity Entrepreneurship :) A remark and a question:
1. I notice one strength you mention at family planning is "Strong funding outside of EA" - I think this is a very interesting and important factor that's somewhat neglected in EA analyses because it goes beyond cost-effectiveness. We are not asking the 'given our resources, how can we spend them most effectively?' but the more general (and more relevant) 'how can we do the most good?' I'd like to see 'how much funding is available outside of EA for this intervention/cause area' as a standard question in EA's cost-effectiveness analyses :)
2. Is there anything you can share about expanding to two of the other cause areas: long-termism and meta-EA?
Has active agents, namely tobacco companies, that push against interventions in this space
I wonder if that's so bad: considering we are playing a zero-sum game against this companies, each $ we make them spend to defend themselves against public policies will impact the price of their product - and, given price-elasticity, will deter consumption.
Unlike in previous years, we are considering multiple different cause areas this year, which leaves more room for cause comparison. We think that generally, both entrepreneurs and donors have specific cause areas in mind when they attend or support our program. However, some have asked us for a sense of how the different cause areas, and more importantly, charities within them, compare. We think each area has its strengths and weaknesses and at this level, it's hard to reliably compare because many assumptions (both ethical and epistemic) need to be made. We are considering the following four areas:
Mental health
Family planning
Animals
Health policy
Weighted factor model framing. Each area is color-coded from strongest to weakest.
* If the limiting factor cell is red, this means that the limiting factor will be met very quickly. Green means that the factor will be hard to meet. ** If the non-captured externality cell is green, this means that the externalities are large and positive. If the cell is red, this means that externality is small.
Another way to frame this is by more specific key strengths and weaknesses
Mental health
Strengths
Directness of the subjective well-being metric and possible underrating of the area by other metrics
Possible promising cost effectiveness for both low and high income countries
Strong to moderate evidence base and background research but limited prioritization work
Could encourage EA movement to consider more cause areas long term
Weaknesses
Uncertain cost effectiveness compared to top global health interventions
More theoretical and philosophical work that is required for assessment
More limited funding base particularly in the EA movement
Evidence base has a wider range of metrics used, making it more difficult to compare
Family planning
Strengths
Strong funding outside of EA
Moderate evidence base
Under certain ethical views could be extremely impactful
Area has more limited use of CEAs than others in global health, leaving promising sub-areas neglected.
Diverse range of positive effects (e.g. unborn child benefits, family benefits, income benefits, etc.)
Weaknesses
Maximizing multiple positive effects makes the charity harder to run
Size of impact depends on unsolved population ethics questions
Evidence is spread out between a wide range of metrics thus speculative conversions and comparisons need to be used
Can be a controversial intervention
Animals
Strengths
Naive cost-effectiveness estimates generally show extremely high cost effectiveness
High levels of historical neglect mean many promising charity ideas are not yet founded
Strong support both within and outside of the EA community
Very strong case that animals should be given moral weight
Weaknesses
Very low evidence base compared to other areas
Some talent shortages in the movement that impair key charities
More limited externalities and flow-through effects than other cause areas High rate of non-effectiveness minded activists in the area
Health policy
Strengths
Naive cost-effectiveness estimates show higher cost effectiveness than standard global health interventions and maybe all other human-focused areas
Evidence base fairly strong if confidence is established in causal relationship of lobbying
Weaknesses
Extremely complex space resulting in a much higher than average chance of a charity having limited or no impact
More limited externalities and flow-through effects compared to other cause areas
Very high bar of charities that are already working in the space leading
GLOBAL HEALTH INTERVENTIONS
Immunization reminders
Strengths
Highly flexible and has great feedback loops. For example can move from SMS reminders to SMS + gossip reminders
Many impactful opportunities are still on the table due to the newness of the intervention Has a spectrum of success (unlike lobbying-based organizations)
Easier to get government buy-in on large scale projects
Weaknesses
High cost effectiveness can be hard to achieve (e.g. higher than GiveDirectly but not as high as other GiveWell top charities)
Behavior change makes concerns about external validity stronger
Almost all benefits are in saving lives of children under five, so limited externalities
Tobacco taxation
Strengths
Possibility of being extremely cost effective
Provides learning opportunities as well as the ability to set a precedent if success is achieved
Often regarded as one of the most effective global health policy interventions that is not consistently applied in all countries
The evidence base that tobacco prevents a massive DALY burden and tobacco taxes reduce tobacco use is very strong
Weaknesses
High-risk opportunity with a high chance of failure
Has active agents, namely tobacco companies, that push against interventions in this space The evidence base for the best strategies to use to get tobacco taxes raised is unclear
There are major difficulties in assessing the impact of a single organization in the space when multiple organizations are working in the same location
Iron and folic acid fortification
Strengths
Nutrition as a broad area is seen as a highly promising area by a wide range of external experts including GiveWell and the Copenhagen Consensus
Iron affects a wide range of health effects, often leading it to be undervalued in standard calculations. One example of this would be iron’s effects on depression rates
There are large gaps in fortification in lower-income countries
Weaknesses
Certain locations are highly effective to run this intervention in (such as northern states in India) but there are fewer gaps than for other interventions
Medium risk opportunity with a medium chance of failure
There are many other nutrition-focused organizations, although none focusing on iron and folic acid in India
Sub-standard fortification may lead to a limited or non-impactful effect
ANIMAL INTERVENTIONS
Dissolved oxygen for fish
Strengths
Extremely cost effective when compared to other animal-focused interventions. The most cost-effective direct intervention we measured
Has a precedent in recent similar cage-free and broiler asks
Strong evidence baseHas strong pathways to funding as many donors consider fish a promising focus area
Has the possibility of shifting the animal movement’s fish focus in a much more effective direction
Weaknesses
Upfront research required to determine key variables (e.g. optimal range of DO) Heterogeneity between species of fish makes it harder to generalize DO or other interventions.
Finding talent on the research side will be challenging in the animal space
Fish focused charities would likely eventually get started so the counterfactual impact comes from the sub-focus areas
Food fortification for egg-laying hens
Strengths
Strong evidence base relative to other interventions in the animal space
Less initial research needed before this organization could be founded
Feed cost is the largest single item cost in poultry production
Room for scaling to other food-related interventions
Nutrition is a well understood and cost-effective intervention
Weaknesses
The timing might not be optimal due to recent cage-free campaigns
Lower cost effectiveness than other animal charities Some concerns regarding counterfactual replaceability of the industry taking into account feed
There is a wide range of possible nutritional improvements with exact effects on pain of birds being less clear
Ask research
Strengths
There is limited research in both the animal movement as a whole and even less directly focused on asks that can be made of governments or corporations
This type of research seems tractable and compared to other research, has quick feedback loops
Given the low cost of a research organization focused on this and that it is possible to affect large corporate campaigns, it could be highly cost effective
Effective altruists have a strong competitive advantage to found this idea
Weaknesses
The impact depends strongly on the effectiveness of corporate and governmental campaigns Impact relies on NGOs and organizations updating based on research
Founders will have to be very strong in both research and communication skills
Relatively few asks are chosen annually, so the feedback loops are slow and there is downtime between key choices
Animal careers
Strengths
Likely the charity idea the largest number of funders and activists will be excited about
Meta-charity that could lead to other charities being founded
Has a low floor for failure (even if done moderately well could have major benefits)
Has models that can be replicated as a starting point (CSO in testing ideas, 80,000 hours in organizational scope)
Could be very cost effective if you take surveys of employee demand at face value
Can be done in a wide range of locations effectively
Weaknesses
Relies on other charities in the animal movement being net positive and effective
Requires a high level of communication skills
Requires a broad understanding of a diverse movement
Co-founders will have to be comfortable with inter-organizational interaction
Many will not understand the charity idea or how it helps the movement
Impact is indirect and hard to measure
Very limited historical research in the area so starting from scratch in many cases
AI Use Note: Main body text entirely human written. Claude (Opus 4.8) helped develop models of animal life histories in the appendix.
Cross-posted from Good Structures.
Executive Summary
* Animal advocates sometimes make claims like “there are X of this animal...
“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the sp...
Summary
Back in November 2023 I posted here to launch Spiro and raise our first $198k. Two and a half years later this is an update and a fundraiser for the next step.
The short version: we've now reached over-5,900 people with TB preventive medicine, including over 3,000 children under five years old. Our early results have held up well an...
I really love Charity Entrepreneurship :) A remark and a question:
1. I notice one strength you mention at family planning is "Strong funding outside of EA" - I think this is a very interesting and important factor that's somewhat neglected in EA analyses because it goes beyond cost-effectiveness. We are not asking the 'given our resources, how can we spend them most effectively?' but the more general (and more relevant) 'how can we do the most good?' I'd like to see 'how much funding is available outside of EA for this intervention/cause area' as a standard question in EA's cost-effectiveness analyses :)
2. Is there anything you can share about expanding to two of the other cause areas: long-termism and meta-EA?