I should preface this by noting that the current charities are not EA ones. This giving plan is also a work in progress and could change.
Yet, the sharing on why and to whom may be of use to me and the EA community.
How Much
I currently donate 10% or more to charity.
It is not a magic number, but is one I am familiar with through the concept of tithing in religion and the Giving What We Can Pledge.
It also represents a greater commitment to the causes. Yet, it still means 90% for me as one person and 10% for the world, hardly a good deal for the world.
Where and Why
Poverty and global-health charities.
Doing something about poverty has always been a focus of mine. Global health becomes more and more of a priority because ill health can prevent not only life, but a quality of life and prosperity.
I tend to focus on direct relief and not advocacy or system change.
The evidence of impact for system change and advocacy is more unclear to me than direct relief.
If the advocacy is successful that does not mean the donation I gave to an advocacy group was effective. As there are so many actors involved in the campaign and the campaign may have been successful regardless of the group I have given to.
Political candidates can receive significant money with no certainty they will be elected or can achieve what they want, if elected.
So, I have more confidence in direct relief.
The Charities
The International Rescue Committee
I have changed from giving to single intervention charities like the Against Malaria Foundation to broader ones like the IRC.
I think if the circus is going to come to town that it should have more than just bed nets for those that do not already have malaria.
It should also have other medical interventions for those with it and other medical issues.
Yes, some of the programs in a broader charity may be less cost-effective than others or less effective than others. Yet, overall I think the broader ones are the better choice.
The Hollywood Sunset Free Clinic
It provides free primary healthcare to people in LA.
I am okay with helping people in developed as well as developing countries.
For me, the debate was primary healthcare or medical research.
I certainly support more funding for medical research, yet I did not know which medical research charity is the one more likely to get to a cure and sooner rather than later.
Yet, primary healthcare charities {no matter which one really} are likely to provide that primary healthcare to people. I also figured that my small donation could cover more of a primary healthcare service than a billion dollar cure, thus be of more use.
The Association to Benefit of Children.
ABC provides healthcare and education to kids in poverty in New York {including in a very poor Congressional district in America, The South Bronx}. It also provides job help and accommodation to families.
They claim to achieve high outcomes for people {much higher than those not in the program}. They have also been recommended by at least one independent program evaluator.
I must admit that education philanthropy is not something I am that supportive of.
I find people treat education as this magic wand that is the solution to everything, but things are not that simple.
Research notes what happens outside the school has more of an impact on educational outcomes and prosperity later in life. So, the focus on philanthropy should {in my mind} be outside the school.
I also want more immediate support to people and not a multi-year school program whose results {like a good job as an adult} is too far away.
I don't , however, want to completely ignore early intervention. I like the medical programs of the charity and education is important. So I support it.
The fourth area of giving is for one-off donations or irregular donations {unlike the above mentioned}, to a variety of charities.
One idea was that if a charity is good enough to receive one donation that it is good enough to receive more than one. Yet, I thought by having a fourth area of giving like this it means charities not missing out on donations because they are not the ones I give to regularly.
It also keeps me motivated to research other charities.
The focus is global, developing countries and developed countries.
They have to be effective and the donation has to equate to at least 1% of the intervention {that's a rough guide}.
So, I would imagine the one-off donations will be at least slightly higher than the regular donations to the charities I give to on a regular basis.
After reading about McKenzie Scott's donations including to lesser-known charities, I am interested in browsing the lesser known ones as well as the more known ones.
I'd be curious to hear why you think that these charities are excellent; eg I'd be curious for your reply to the arguments here.
I respect cluelessness arguments enough that I've removed "strongly" from "strongly believe" in my response; I was just in an enthusiastic mood.
My giving to charities focused on short-term impact (and GiveWell in particular) is motivated by a few things:
- I believe that my work currently generates much more value for CEA than the amount I donate to other charities, which means that almost all of my impact is likely of a meta/longtermist variety. But I am morally uncertain, and place enough credence on moral theories emphasizing short-term value that I want at least a fraction of my work to impact people who are alive today.
- Around the time I joined CEA, I had been rapidly becoming more focused on the long term; had I taken some other non-EA job, I think that all or almost all of my donations would be going to meta causes as a way of getting long-term leverage. Instead, I get to hedge a bit with my donations.
- Personal/emotional factors. I sleep a bit better at night knowing that I've used my unusually lucky circumstances to provide something good for people who have been unusually unlucky. (In theory, I should also sleep worse because I've deprived longtermist projects of funding, but t
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