Crossposting from the Effective Altruism community on Reddit. Thought it may be helpful to have a discussion here as well for those who don't frequent r/EffectiveAltruism.
For those who are thinking about how they can leverage their donations towards this cause area, where should we be donating to?
Bail funds are getting the most media attention right now, with the Minnesota Freedom Fund receiving $20M. With that, I'm not sure if there is a funding need right now for bail funds, compared to other neglected organizations in the same cause area. I'm also not sure on how to compare effectiveness or tractability between organizations.
Note: I understand that there are more effective cause areas such as malaria or x-risk. However, many of my non-EA peers want to donate in this specific cause area and I feel like I could help them choose the most effective charity. I, too, would like to donate to this cause area, but still maintain my usual donations to EA charities.
I think there are two tacks to take here, depending on whether your goal is reducing racial disparities or addressing discrimination itself.
1. Because of the heavy focus on poverty in developing countries, donations to normal EA charities also serve to reduce international racial disparities. The development gap between Africa and the rest of the world is strongly tied to colonial policies designed to enrich European countries at the expense of majority-black countries.
2. If you want to focus on racial discrimination, I'd suggest charities aiming to provide help to refugees of genocides. In this case, I'd suggest donating to GiveDirectly's refugee assistance programs, which aim to provide those fleeing racial, ethnic, and religious genocides with enough money to survive.
Many studies have been done on this in econometrics; very few of them are good.