Part A (20 mins.)
In this exercise, we’ll imagine that you’re planning to donate to a charity to improve global health, and explore how much you could do with that donation.
GiveWell is an effective altruism-inspired organization which attempts to identify outstanding donation opportunities in global health and development. Using this tool to estimate your future income and Givewell’s reports on their top charities, try and work out what you could achieve if you donated 10% of your lifetime income to one of these charities.
If you’re short on time, here’s a sheet with information about three top GiveWell charities. If you’d like to explore further, check out GiveWell’s cost effectiveness models.
Complete this exercise for three GiveWell charities, writing down your answer like, e.g.:
Malaria Consortium: X cases of malaria prevented, with an estimate of N deaths averted
Part B (10 mins.)
In the last section, you ended up with a few different options. Now imagine you were given $1,000 to donate to only one of these charities.
There's a difficult judgment to be made now: since you have to pick, which charity would you donate to to do the most good?
Now write down your answer to the following questions:
Which charity do you pick to donate to? Why?
Part C (Optional, 10 mins.)
What are other decisions in your life that you might consider generating quantitative estimates and comparing outcomes for?
A. If I had to choose, I would donate to Malaria Consortium. Based on the information I have reviewed, they focus on interventions for young children, providing anti-malaria drugs and immunization to infants, which has the potential to prevent a significant number of deaths. By targeting children at an early age when their immunity is still developing, the impact can be substantial. Additionally, if there is a recommendation for early malaria immunization, the effect could be even greater. B. With only $1,000 to donate, I would choose to support Helen Keller International. Their distribution of vitamins costs only $1 per dose, which means that with the available funding, I can reach a larger number of people and have a greater overall impact. C. There are other decisions in life where it would be beneficial to generate quantitative estimates and compare outcomes. For example, when considering legal and medical interventions, it would be valuable to assess the potential benefits and drawbacks of each option to make an informed decision without neglecting any important factors.