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.
My position on this topic remains the same as in that the other similar question that came up recently: namely, that I suspect that the same "developing-world multiplier" applies to tackling racism (and discrimination more broadly) as to most other near-term cause areas, and one would probably be better off looking for opportunities there than focusing on very high-profile cases in the US.
But, if one is really fixed on spending in the developed world, I agree that OpenPhil's criminal-justice-reform grantees are a good place to start.