This is a video and transcript of an AMA with Darren Margolias, the Executive Director of Beast Philanthropy. The interviewer is CEA's Emma Richter. See the questions Darren is answering in the AMA announcement post.
If you'd like to support the Beast Philanthropy x GiveDirectly collaboration, you can donate here. The first $150,000 of donations will be matched. GiveDirectly shares their thinking on donation matching here.
Video AMA- Emma interviews Darren
Short transcript
This transcript was cleaned up and shortened by ChatGPT. To my eye it seems to accurately represent Emma's questions and Darren's answers, but I've included the full, un-edited transcript at the end of this post so that you can cross-reference, get accurate quotes from Darren, or look for more detail. All errors in the GPT summary are my (Toby’s) own (by a transitive property).
Emma
Hello everyone, I'm Emma from CEA. Welcome to our Forum AMA with Darren Margolias, the executive director of Beast Philanthropy. I'll be asking Darren the questions you posted on the EA Forum. For some context, Beast Philanthropy is a YouTube channel and organization started by Mr. Beast, the most watched YouTuber in the world. During Darren's four years at Beast Philanthropy, he's grown the channel to over 25 million subscribers and expanded the scope of what they do, from running food banks to building houses, funding direct cash transfers, and curing diseases. Speaking of cash transfers, Beast Philanthropy recently collaborated with GiveDirectly to make a video and transfer $200,000 to Ugandans in poverty. Darren, thanks for joining us. It's really exciting to have you and to ask all these questions. I'll start with some intro context questions. Could you give us a quick overview of what Beast Philanthropy does and your role?
Darren
Beast Philanthropy started out with Jimmy’s initial idea to create a channel that would generate revenue to fund a food bank and feed our local community. We hoped to spread it across the country and maybe even other countries. We quickly realized there was much more to what we were doing than we initially contemplated, and it’s grown far beyond that. As the executive director, I’m the person who gets all the blame when things go wrong.
Emma
Yeah, fair enough. So I'm curious, what first got you interested in working as an executive director for a charity?
Darren
I was actually a real estate developer. In 2002, a friend found some kittens under her front deck and couldn’t find a shelter that wouldn’t euthanize them if they weren’t adopted within a week. She decided to find them homes, and I said I’d pay for all the bedding and everything. Out of that, we started an animal rescue organization, which has grown into the biggest no-cage, no-kill facility in the southeastern United States. It’s been very successful. Along the way, I realized that the endless pursuit of making more money wasn’t fulfilling. In 2008, I had a realization that I wanted to do more in my life than work hard and buy stuff that didn’t make me happy. The animal project brought me fulfillment, so I decided to sell my real estate portfolio and start doing things that mattered to me. We built the animal charity, then I started another charity for severely affected autistic kids. One day, Jimmy’s CEO called and asked me to meet Jimmy. I didn’t know who Mr. Beast was at the time.
Darren
He told me they wanted to get every dog in a dog shelter adopted and were considering our shelter. When I got to North Carolina, I started my presentation right away, but Jimmy interrupted and said, “We’ve already approved the video. It’s being done at your shelter. You’re here for another reason.” He then said, “I’m going to start a charity, and you’re the guy who’s going to do it.” I was quite surprised. He explained Beast Philanthropy, and though I didn’t understand why he chose me, he said, “You were successful before and walked away from a high-earning career to do charity. That tells me you’re the person I want to run Beast Philanthropy.”
Emma
That’s a very cool backstory. Regarding the work you’ve done so far, what kind of data do you collect on the projects, and do you know how many people you’ve helped over the years?
Darren
It’s difficult to measure, but I want to explain what Beast Philanthropy is because a lot of people don’t understand. What we’re trying to do now is use the channel to have a profound impact on the people watching it. We have a strong audience, primarily 18 to 23 years old, though eight-year-olds often recognize us in public. We get a lot of feedback from parents about the amazing things their kids are doing because they’ve watched the channel. People are volunteering every weekend. We realized that the channel's message is more important than the work we do. Jimmy once said he’d put a billion dollars into the philanthropy account without telling me, and I said it wouldn’t make a difference. The U.S. government spends nearly two trillion dollars a year on social spending and hasn’t fixed any problems. Money isn’t the solution; getting people to care and get involved is. If we can engage a wider audience, they’ll have far more impact than just giving money. That’s what we strive to do.
Darren
We encourage our audience to learn about issues, consider new approaches, and build wider participation. Last year, we built 120 wells in Africa, serving 500,000 people, and distributed about 2 million pounds of food a month, feeding approximately 325,000 people. Even if we helped a million people last year, it’s a small number compared to the global population. We need everyone to take responsibility and do their part. That’s what we’re trying to do with Beast Philanthropy: spread the message, influence, and educate, making that the primary goal.
Emma
That’s really inspiring. It resonates a lot. There are so many different ways to help, and with your reach, it makes sense to focus on that. Now, I’ll dive into specific questions from the AMA. Many users asked about your approach to finding giving opportunities and evaluating them. What does your decision-making process look like? Do you use research, and how do you balance local versus global giving and cost-effectiveness?
Darren
We consider all of that, but there are extra considerations. We want to be authentic and have a meaningful impact on marginalized, vulnerable people. We also look at whether the issue is something people are aware of and care about. Everyone knows there are kids in Africa without clean water, but it’s not at the front of their minds. We look for ways to tell a story that makes people care about the issue. If we can get them to care, we can inspire them to do something about it. So, our first component is helping the community, and the second is using that to educate our audience in a way that others haven’t.
Darren
When we show kids in villages who are excited and welcoming, our audience starts liking and caring about them. Then, when they see those kids drinking dirty river water, it hits differently. People care more because they care about the kids. We try to engage people with a story, making it relatable rather than presenting academic bullet points. This approach inspires them to take action. For example, we built two wells in Cameroon three years ago. From that video, we have 299 documented wells built by others inspired by it. Companies, YouTubers, and individuals have taken action because we showed them a relatable story.
Emma
That’s very cool.
Darren
Back to your question, it’s important to find issues that don’t resonate strongly with people and get them to care. We want to educate, show solutions, and inspire others to take action. The video we did with GiveDirectly is a good example. When Tyler approached me about direct cash transfers, I thought it was a terrible idea. I worried it would be like winning the lottery and ruining lives. But Tyler showed me data and explained it. It converted me, and now the video has about 19 or 20 million views. I want to educate people about issues, novel solutions, and things they might initially think are bad ideas.
Emma
It sounds like you’re saying that making the issue human and relatable through videos, and thinking outside the box to solve problems, are key factors. Video content seems well-suited for this. A related question from Huw: What kinds of charities perform best in terms of views or engagement? Do those factors affect which charities you pick for future videos?
Darren
We do consider whether the content will be entertaining, but Jimmy doesn’t care about the views. He gets 3.3 billion views a month on his main channel, while we get 50 or 60 million views a month on the philanthropy channel. The only reason we care about views is that each view is a seed planted in someone’s mind. We measure success by how much we can inspire people to care and get involved. Some topics, like distributing clothing or food, don’t get strong engagement, but we still do them. We have a project on addiction coming up. It's a tough topic because many people see addiction as a moral failure. But understanding why people end up addicted can change perceptions.
Darren
We look for content that is powerful and engaging to keep our audience interested. If I pick boring subjects, people will think the philanthropy channel is boring, and we’ll lose the opportunity to engage with them. So, we do consider the topics carefully.
Emma
That makes sense. A related question from Toby: Do you think there’s a trade-off between finding the best ways to help people and making the best videos? How do you navigate that?
Darren
I don’t think there’s a trade-off because there are so many issues and ways to help. We don’t lack topics that need attention. If I have to choose between two equally impactful projects, I’ll pick the one that’s more engaging. But we never run out of important issues to address.
Emma
Got it. Sebastian noticed the GiveDirectly video has around 20 million views, but the fundraiser hasn’t reached its goal. How do you think about turning viewers into donors or encouraging them to take action?
Darren
We don’t push hard for donations. Our primary goal is to educate and inspire, not fundraise. Donations are a bonus. We usually have sponsors for the videos, and the money we earn from those sponsors goes directly to the projects. In the case of the GiveDirectly video, we made a $200,000 donation, and anything beyond that is a bonus. However, someone who saw the video is now matching up to $150,000, which will help reach the fundraising goal.
Emma
That’s helpful. Jason asked where you see most of the impact of your work coming from. It sounds like the main impact comes from educating and inspiring viewers, rather than direct donations.
Darren
Absolutely. For example, our video on wells inspired 299 documented wells built by others. That’s much more impactful than the money we raised directly. We focus on planting seeds and inspiring people to take action.
Emma
Powder asks what quantitative goals you have and how you measure success in your work.
Darren
Our primary goal is to inspire the next generations, which is difficult to measure. YouTube is mostly a one-way platform, and we can’t read all the comments. We get anecdotal feedback, like stories from parents and donors. To measure this more quantitatively, we’re developing an app that incentivizes and tracks volunteer work, fundraising, and donations. This app will engage kids in a game where they can only participate by helping others. It will launch next year and should be transformational.
Emma
That sounds exciting. Nuno asks, what’s the rough amount you plan to give out each year?
Darren
It depends on how many videos we can produce and what we can charge for sponsorships. Our growth has been exponential, so it’s hard to project. We spend 96% of our revenue directly on programs, keeping administrative costs low. I’d love to see Beast Philanthropy in the $75 million range next year and exceed $100 million within three years.
Emma
Grace Adams asks if Jimmy or the business would consider taking a public pledge to give a certain amount to effective charities, like the 10% pledge.
Darren
Jimmy has publicly stated many times that he intends to give away everything, and I believe he will. He lives a modest life and invests everything back into his growth. He gives a generous amount already, but his focus is on growing his businesses.
Emma
There were lots of questions about working in different areas. Would you consider working with organizations like GiveWell to deliver malarial bed nets or vitamin A supplementation?
Darren
We get around 200 solicitations a day, and we do consider them. We have about 14 projects on the schedule, eight of them actively in progress. Some projects take a year or more to complete. We’re familiar with GiveWell and the effectiveness of anti-malarial and anti-parasitic medications. We’ll keep doing as much as we can, focusing on the broadest diversity of issues. I want people to find the cause that speaks to them and participate in it.
Darren
We highlight ordinary people who become extraordinary by doing one thing. For example, a kid with 50 meal swipes left on his food card distributed meals to homeless people, which inspired him to distribute more than 40 million pounds of food. There are so many innovative ways to approach old problems.
Emma
Are there any causes or kinds of work that you’d be excited to do more of or that you haven’t done yet?
Darren
There are so many causes, and each one is exciting in its own way. We favor projects that are meaningful and sustainable, like building schools rather than one-time food distributions. We have many incredible projects coming up, all very diverse.
Emma
One practical question from Forum user W Troy: Is there a way for organizations to apply or get on your radar if they want to partner with you?
Darren
They can email me at darren@beastphilanthropy.org. We get a couple hundred emails a day, and we do consider them. We can only do so many projects a year, but sometimes we come across something that moves to the top of the list.
Emma
A follow-up question: With so many opportunities, how do you narrow them down?
Darren
The first filter is always to do right by the community we’re serving. It has to be a meaningful and long-lasting impact. Then, we consider whether the issue is something people are aware of and care about. We also look at whether we can tell a compelling story and if we have partners to help with financial support. There are many considerations, and we try to make the best decisions with the resources we have.
Emma
John Salter asks, how could the effective altruism community be useful to you in helping you do more good? Are there any particular challenges you’re facing?
Darren
Your community is already doing the most important thing: being involved. I appreciate that. We’re in a unique position to affect many people, especially with the app we’re developing. We can change how young people think about giving. We always need more resources. Jimmy is generous, but he shouldn’t shoulder the entire burden. We could use advertising space in our videos, for example. I don’t want to take donations away from EA or other charities, but we could always use more support to expand our impact.
Emma
A related question from Ludwig Bald: What advice would you give to other filmmakers or content creators who want to spread the ideas of effective charity and encourage giving?
Darren
Give people a reason to watch your video. Make it entertaining, not just a lecture or PowerPoint presentation. Engage them with a story, make it relatable, and leave them feeling uplifted. Understand how YouTube works and keep viewers engaged throughout the video. It’s an evolving process, and we’re always learning and improving.
Emma
That makes sense. A niche question: Do you know any stats about how many people watch most of your videos?
Darren
It varies, but generally, about 30% of people abandon the video in the first 30 seconds. The key is to hook them early and keep them engaged. Jimmy is a master at that. It’s harder with charity content, but we’re always trying to improve.
Emma
That’s all the questions I have. Thank you so much for letting us pick your brain and hear more about your work. This has been very cool.
Darren
I appreciate it. I’m a big fan of what you’re doing, and I’m grateful to your followers for caring and making a difference. Let’s spread the message and get more people involved. If we can inspire tens of millions of kids to grow up inclined to give a little bit more, we’ll have a huge impact. Thanks for having me.
Full, more accurate, transcript
The below version of the transcript is essentially unedited, the version in the video has more pauses, umms etc… removed, and the version above is summarised by ChatGPT. The main use-case for this version is quoting Darren accurately.
Emma (00:01.33) Hello everyone, I'm Emma from CEA. Welcome to our Forum AMA with Darren Margolias, who's the executive director of Beast Philanthropy. I'll be asking Darren the questions that you posted on the EA Forum For some context, Beast Philanthropy is a YouTube channel and organization started by Mr. Beast, the most watched YouTuber in the world. During Darren's four years at Beast Philanthropy, he's grown the channel to over 25 million subscribers and expanded the scope of what they do from running food banks to building houses, funding direct cash transfers, and curing diseases. Speaking of cash transfers, Beast Philanthropy recently collaborated with GiveDirectly to make a video and transfer $200 ,000 to Ugandans in poverty. So Darren, thanks for joining us. It's really exciting to have you and to ask all these questions. I'll start with kind of some intro context questions. Could you just give us like a quick overview of what Beast Philanthropy 3B does, and your role.
Darren (01:01.743) Beast philanthropy started out, Jimmy's initial idea for Beast philanthropy was to start a channel that would generate the revenue that we needed to fund a food bank and feed our local community. we are hopeful that if we are successful at that, we'd be able to spread it across the entire country and maybe big dream if we could start affecting in other countries as well. We very quickly realized that there's a lot more to what we are doing than we initially contemplated and it's grown far beyond that now. And I'm the executive director, I'm the person that gets all the blame when everything goes wrong again.
Emma (01:47.346) Yeah, fair enough. So I'm curious, yeah, in your role, first got you interested in working in something like being an executive director for a charity?
Darren (02:00.362) I actually was a real estate developer. But in 2002, a friend of mine found some kittens under her front deck and she was looking for a shelter to put them in. And we couldn't find a shelter in Atlanta that wouldn't euthanize the animals if nobody adopted them within a week. so... she undertook to find them homes. I said that I'd pay for all of the bedding and everything. And out of that, we started an organization, an animal rescue organization, which has grown into a very large organization. It's the biggest no -cage, no -kill facility in the southeastern United States. It's been very successful. Along the way, that you know I successful in my real estate career and I was making a lot of money but somewhere along the way I realized that I wasn't enjoying it at all and the endless pursuit of making more money was not something that it really held much appeal. In 2008 I had a realization that I wanted to do more in my life than work really hard and buy stuff that didn't make me happy. that the one thing that had brought me a huge amount of fulfillment and enjoyment was the animal project. that made me re -contemplate the direction in what I was doing with my life and decided to sell a real estate portfolio and just start doing things that mattered to me. And it had been on a very small scale, never dreaming that I'd... have any real effect, big effect. But we built the animal charity and then I started another charity for autistic kids that were very severely affected on the autism spectrum. it was just going about my life doing that. And then I got a phone call one day from Jimmy's CEO. And I didn't even know who Mr. Beast was at the time. He asked me to come up and meet Jimmy and he told me that they wanted to get every dog in a dog shelter adopted and they were considering our shelter. But when I got up to North Carolina, I met Jimmy and I started giving them the presentation right away and he's like, I'm not interested in that. We've already approved the video. It's being done at your shelter. You're here for another reason. And I said, what is it? And he said, I'm going to start a charity and you're the guy that's going to do it.
Emma (04:50.14) Wow.
Darren (04:51.05) I was quite surprised like I said do you want to start he started an animal shelter and he said no and he described Beast Philanthropy anthropia and I couldn't understand what had appealed to me about, appealed to Jimmy about me but later in the conversation he was like look you know you were very successful before and I know that you walked away from a very high earning in career to do charity and that tells me that you're the person that I want to run Beast Philanthropy.
Emma (05:22.224) That's really cool. That's a very cool backstory into how you ended up here. Yeah. So a little bit about the work that you've done so far. Curious what kind of data you collect on the projects that you've run so far and do know how many people you've helped in the years that you've been there
Darren (05:44.206) It's difficult to measure. But if you don't mind, I want to explain what Beast Philanthropy is, because a lot of people don't actually understand what we are. What we are trying to do now with Beast Philanthropy, and this was something that became very apparent to us in the first few months that we were running it, was that the channel was having a profound impact on the people that were watching it. we have a very strong audience, but it skews towards the younger side. Our primary demographic is 18 to 23 years old, but when I walk around in public, it's eight -year -olds come running We just don't get data from YouTube on anybody under the age of 13. But we started getting a lot of feedback from parents around the world and they're telling us some amazing things that their kids were doing because they'd been watching the channel. Other people were emailing us and telling us that they were going and volunteering every weekend. We very quickly realized that Beast Philanthropy was much more important than the work that we were doing was the message that we were spreading. that I even was at Jimmy's house one night and he said to me, I'm going to put a billion dollars into the philanthropy checking account one day and I'm not even going to tell you when I do it I said to him it's not going to make any difference and he looked at me like I was crazy and said why not and I said the US government spends close to two trillion dollars a year on social spending. If they're spending two thousand billion dollars a year and they're not fixing any problems, money is not the solution. Getting people to care about other people, getting people to get involved and help other people out. If we can engage a much much wider audience they will have far more impact than if we try to convince people to give more money. And that is what we need to strive to do is to encourage our audience to start learning about the issues that are challenging humanity across the planet and consider new approaches to old problems and also build engagement and participation at a much wider scale. I'd much rather see a hundred million people giving $2 a month, then one person giving $50 million a year. If we can motivate people and we can show them that the small little contributions that they make when added together with hundreds of millions of other people, that is an approach that might work, that it probably will. If we each take responsibility to do our little bit, then maybe we'll actually start moving the needle in human suffering across the planet. Last year was a good year for us because we built 120 wells in Africa and that will serve a population of 500 ,000 people. We also distribute about 2 million pounds of food a month and that feeds approximately 325 ,000 people. So if you look at it and you say and I at this is a stretch but even if you say that we helped a million people last year when you take a million and you divide it by eight billion you don't have a very big number we all of us no matter how much we do are affecting very small pockets of the population that needs help around the world you know and if we can build wider participation within the populations and people stop saying this is the government's problem to fix or this is the NGO's problems to fix and I'm not going to do anything about it myself, we're never going to have an effect globally at the scale that we need to. So that's what we are trying to do with Beast Philanthropy is we consider the messaging, the influence, the education that we are able to broadcast much more important than the work that we do. And I do not in any way want to diminish that we always, when we go into a community, want to do best by the community. We want to serve them in the most appropriate, most long lasting, best way that we can. but that's a small part of a bigger picture.
Emma (10:30.15) That's really inspiring. mean, yeah, that resonates a lot as well of, yeah, I think a lot of us, think, you if we're lucky to have a roof over our head and have food and right, there's, think, having a mindset of what can we give back and how can we, yeah, how can we help other people and trying to encourage that mindset in other people to pause and think, what can I, yeah, what can I do to help other people and alleviate human suffering and right, there's so many different kinds of ways and yeah, that's, and obviously with the reach that you have that like, that makes a lot of sense. that that would be a component of what you're thinking about. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, well, I'm going to dive in now to the specific questions from the AMA. And I'll try and give a shout to the different people that asked them. A lot of different users asked about your approach. What's your approach to finding giving opportunities and evaluating different opportunities? And particularly about what does the decision making process look like for that? And do you use research, do you think about sort of the local versus global giving components, cost effectiveness, things like that
Darren (11:36.703) We do think about all of that, but there's a few different extra considerations that we have to take in everything. mean, the first thing is that we want to be authentic and with our giving. We want to go and we want to have a meaningful impact on the lives of marginalized, vulnerable people that are suffering in the world. We also, one of the primary things that we consider is, is this an issue that people are aware of? And is this an issue that people actually care about? You know, I think that everybody knows that there are kids in Africa that go without clean drinking water, go without any water during the dry season for extended periods of time. But it's not at the front of their mind. It's not an emotional human connection that they have to the problem. It's an academic thing that they think about and then they don't think about it. It's in their mind, but they don't think about it. They don't know what their approaches are. we look for it and we look if there's a way for us to tell a story that will get them to care about the issue in a way that they haven't before. And if we can get them to care about it, you know, we can inspire them to do something about it. So the first component is definitely help the community. The second component is use that as a way to educate the massive audience that we have about what it is in a way that other people have failed to do. I'll come back to that, but you know, If a teacher gets up and has a lesson planned for the class one day and they're going to talk about the lack of clean drinking water around the world, kids are going to hear it, it's not going to resonate with them, or very few of them are going to connect to it. But when we go in and we do a video, We try to show, you know, these are amazing kids. You're going to these villages and the kids are so sweet and they're all over you. They're so excited, they're so welcoming, they want you to go play with them. When we show that on camera, the audience starts liking those kids, caring about those kids. But then when they see those kids now drinking dirty river water, it hits differently. they start to care about the issue more because they care about these kids. And if we engage the people in a story, we show them something that they can relate to on it as human beings relate to one another instead of academic bullet points that other people try to force down the throat and wonder why they're not effective, then we can make a difference. while we're speaking about water, I... I built two wells in Cameroon three years ago. That was the first step into the water security issue. Just from that video now we have 299 documented wells that have been built because of just from that video where people have reached out to us and said this video inspired me, and my company has now built 20 wells in India. Another YouTuber has built 59 wells himself over the last three years. You know, so we go and we show two wells in a way that we get people to care about it and they go and they pick up the thing and they go do their little piece. They do fundraisers or whatever. They're going to build wells in there, 299 that we can document already. And there's a lot more coming.
Emma (15:38.322) That's very cool. Yeah, so,
Darren (15:44.215) Sorry, Just to clarify back on your question, you know, it's very important to us to find issues that people, that don't resonate very strongly with people and get them to resonate very strongly. We want to educate them. We want to show them that there are solutions. We want to get them to consider solutions that they might not have thought were good ideas in the beginning that show them that they do actually work. hopefully to inspiration where they go and they take the bat and then they run with it. And I'll draw this back to the video that we did with you guys. When Tyler originally approached me and asked me if we were interested in doing a direct cash giving program, I really thought it was a terrible idea. Now, why did I think it was a terrible idea? You know, I was thinking more, I hadn't been exposed to the issue, so my inclination is like, well, I've heard so many stories about people winning the lottery and it destroying their lives. And wouldn't that be the same? I mean, if we go and give it Relative to the lifestyle, a large cash grant to a population that has been very impoverished for generations, would it not have the same effect? You know Tyler explained it to me and he showed me some of the data and everything like that and I was like wow, this is actually interesting and this is one of the things that I wanted to do the channel is I want people to consider new approaches, I mean, I love the project that we did together. We're not Once somebody opened my eyes to the effect that it could have, it converted me. It converted, I think we're probably at 19 or 20 million views on the video by now. But that's one of the things that I want, is I want to educate people about the issues, the novel solutions, about things that they might think is a bad idea, but it's based on intuition rather than data. So that's what I try to do with the channel.
Emma (18:08.688) Yeah. Yeah. So what it sounds like you're saying is like, there's something about... Can you make the issue human to people through the videos and make it relatable so that they can understand it? And also this component of sort of thinking outside the box and trying to think about like different approaches and new ideas to, yeah, solving the same problems. that's, yeah, that's really, yeah, Those are like very cool factors to think about for, especially for the format that you have and the ability to like take the time to explain things and make it really human. think like, yeah, video content seems just so suited to do that really well. But yeah, you all do a good job as well. yeah. Yeah, So this question from huw is a bit related of what kinds of charities perform the best in terms of views or engagement and do any of those kinds of factors of funds raised or engagement or views things like that affect which charities you end up picking for future videos?
Darren (19:08.704) A component of it is always going to be, is this going to be a topic that we can tell the story the way that we want to, that we know is going to work. Unfortunately, not every topic is going to be really interesting to a broad audience. In order for this whole thing to be successful, in order for this over years to expose people to hundreds of different challenges and solutions and everything like that. We have to consider whether the content is going to be entertaining or not. Now let me stop there and just clarify, Jimmy doesn't care about the views on the channel. You know when people say he just does it for the views or they have that skepticism, Jimmy gets around 3.3 billion views a month on his main channel and we get 50 or 60 million views a month on the philanthropy channel, it's usually one and a half percent or something that's, on a pie chart it would be such a little slice. And for the amount of time and effort that has to be, Jimmy has to put into the philanthropy when he could be using it, doing other things that would get him more views, earning money because we don't earn any money it actually invests heavily in the philanthropy. The only reason that we care about the views is that I consider every single time that a person watches one of our videos it's a seed planted in their own minds. It's a way of teaching them that Charity is not a sacrifice. Volunteering is not a burden. This is something that, you know, we all have a responsibility and an ability to contribute to solutions ourselves and to teach in that. So from that perspective I have to consider whether the topic that we are doing is going to be interesting and that we can tell a story in an interesting way. We have found that some of the topics that we have covered before, distributing clothing, warm winter clothing to populations that desperately need it doesn't get a very strong engagement. Food related topics don't get very strong engagement, you know. So that is a factor. We still will do them. We have a project coming up where we'll be focusing on addiction. And from the anecdotal experience that I have, there's a tiered list of the charities that people are most inclined to contribute to. Addiction is near the bottom of the scale over there because I think that a lot of the general population look at addicts and consider it a moral failure of these people and they don't deserve support or sympathy you know. But when you actually start exploring the issue, you find that there are so many reasons that really good people land up in addiction because they had an injury or because something went catastrophically wrong in their life. And nobody ever, when they're growing up as a kid, looks at an addict living in the streets and says, that's what I want to do when I grow up. If we understand why these people are in the situation where they are, Humanize the people suffering from it, then maybe we can start building the way that they care about it, but you know so in some of the topics we go into we're not sure whether I don't know if people will click on that video and watch it. I certainly hope they will my own eyes have been opened to the issue and I hope we can do that for other people. So we do need to look for content that is going to be powerful and engaging, but for the reasons of in order to... If I pick boring subject matter and then, you know, people start thinking that the philanthropy channel is boring, we lose the opportunity to engage with them, you know, hundreds of times over the next five years. So To that extent, it is important for us to consider the topics.
Emma (23:48.951) Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, I I guess a related question, which might be a bit of a follow up from Forum user Toby says, do you think there's a trade off between finding the best ways to help people and making the best videos? I think you're gesturing at this a little bit. But how do you navigate maybe that trade off between those?
Darren (24:11.895) No, I don't think so. I think that, you know, there could be, but there are so many issues in the world and there are so many ways that people are suffering and there are so many lessons to teach and ways to inspire people. It's not like that we have a... lack of topics that need to be addressed. So if I have one or the other and all else is the same that I think that one is going to be more engaging or more powerful, more effective, I'm going to pick that one. If we only had a handful of issues that challenged the world and humanity then we do them all. There's so many and it's easy for us to find something that meets all of the marks. Yes, it's a population that desperately needs help, we can offer relief, we can educate people. We can inspire people. Then we'll select the one that helps us communicate in the best way possible.
Emma (25:29.938) Yeah. Let's see. Oh, yeah. So, Forum user Sebastian says they noticed that the GiveDirectly video in particular has yeah, 19 or 20 million views, but that the fundraiser associated with it hasn't reached, I think maybe at the time was close to like a third of the total goal. And related to this, some other people also asked, how do you think about that challenge of turning people watching the video into them donating or them doing something in the world and causing action. Yeah, How do you think about that problem of, somebody watches the video, what do they do next?
Darren (26:08.918) You'll see in the videos that we don't push very much on the donations. It's not our primary objective. And I'm much more interested in people watching the video and understanding the lesson that we are conveying than them making a donation. The donations we put on there, we don't push very hard for it. But we're not trying to use the channel to fundraise in that way. It's an add on rather than the purpose. So we always on any of the projects that we do, almost every video is sponsored by a brand that wants access to our audience because they want to promote a product that they have. And we can, because we have such a large engagement, we can charge quite a lot of money for those ads. That is the money. So on the GiveDirectly project, we made the donation of $200,000 to GiveDirectly And anything that we get beyond that is a bonus. But something that has happened with most of the videos that we've done is there, when you have 30 million people watch your video, there's gonna be people that can help, that learn about the issue and want to contribute. And I can say in almost every single case, if not every single case, there has been a consequence that we didn't anticipate where somebody comes in and says, we're going to do this, or we're going to help with this. And some of them, the government even saw the work that was being done and how necessary it was. One of the organizations that we worked with that was on the verge of shutting down because of lack of funds, we undertook to fund them for a year so that they'd have a bridge to try and... build the support but somebody in the government in the country saw the video and they've stepped in and they've guaranteed it for 30 years you know so it's, that's nice, I love it when we raise a lot of money in most of the fundraisers that we attach to the videos, the money is collected with GiveDirectly, the money goes directly to GiveDirectly, it doesn't come through us. In some of the videos the very last video that we posted from Zambia, she is not registered with the Google network to collect funds, so we'll collect on her behalf, and 100 % of what we collect will go to her. So we're not even utilizing the fundraisers that we attach to the videos for ourselves. We're using it for the cause that we are featuring. But it's always a bonus, not the reason for it. And then also with regard to the video that we did with GiveDirectly in Uganda. Somebody who saw the video is now matching up to $150,000 to get you to the $150,000 target that you had. They are now doubling any donation that comes in. So there's that and we just recorded this morning a short piece that we'll put on our Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn and other channels and we'll promote the matching thing. And so hopefully we get there. Like I say, I consider anything that we get a bonus.
Emma (30:02.584) Yeah, that's helpful because I think the next question I was going to ask was from Jason who was wondering where you see most of the impact of your work coming from and right that it sounds like there could be different avenues of yeah whether that's viewer donations or donating to Beast Philanthropy versus directly to the charities but yeah it sounds like what you're saying is Yeah, not necessarily the direct call to action per se, but like planting the seed of people learning more about the issue and understanding it. And then also that sort of the spirit of generosity or charity that you're encouraging through the video is seems like the main main route to impact that you're describing?
Darren (30:37.734) Absolutely, I mean again to come back to the wells, one because it's such a good example. But I don't even know if we collected money in that video, I can't remember. It's insignificant. Usually we raise fifteen to fifty thousand dollars. 299 wells being built so far because of that video, that's much more impactful in the water security issue than any amount of money that we would have raised .
Emma (31:19.644) So, Forum user Powder asks what quantitative goals you have for your work and how do you measure success in this kind of work?
Darren (31:29.134) So now that you understand what my goal is, and that is to inspire the next generations, it's very difficult for us to measure that. YouTube is mostly a one way communication platform. unless somebody puts something... And we get thousands of average comments per video, so we can't even read all the comments in the video, but we see people talking about... that they're inspired or they went and did something, but we're gonna miss most of those. But I would like to have a better way of collecting that data. But when we started realizing, anecdotally we started getting a lot of feedback from people around the world about the effect it was having that, on Thanksgiving, some guy emailed me and said His seven and eight year old daughter came and asked if they could box up all of the food that the leftovers and they they fed 15 homeless people and a cat that night or you know another guy emailed and asked for our wiring instructions and he sent $50,000. I didn't know who he was or anything I emailed him back and I said can I get him the phone and at least thank you I got on the phone with him and I said, he said, well, tell me about your organization. And I said, well, what do you want to know? I'll stop there. I don't want to bore you with what you're reading said I know absolutely nothing and I said well why would you give us $50,000 then and he said because my 13 year old daughter who has not spent a cent of any of the money that she's earned since she was seven years old went and donated it all to a dog shelter last week because she saw a video that you did on a dog shelter and he said if you can have that effect on my daughter then I want to know who you are and what you're doing. That kind of stuff but I would like to be able to more quantitatively measure it so we started thinking about it and I call everything that we have done to date where we go and we undertake these projects and we make videos about it and we hope that they germinate you know these ideas germinate across the planet That I call passive inspiration. We're now moving into something that I call active inspiration. What happens if we incentivize and drive our audience, we give them reason and purpose in a way that we can measure it? So we have now designed an app. that takes everything that we know about engagement and gamification and competition, socialization, collaboration, puts it all together into an app that kids will use. And the only way that they can play this game and they can compete against one another, they can form teams or they can challenge other teams, it's really an engaging app. But the only way that they can participate in it is by volunteering, fundraising, or donating. And we can now track. We have tied into some other databases of volunteer opportunities around the world. So in the app you can go and you can pick a volunteer opportunity and we can authenticate whether they did what they said they were going to do as well. By doing that, not only are we driving their engagement, but we're also measuring it. The app is something I'm super excited about. It's in development right now.
Darren (35:18.08) It started out as an idea for a single video and as we're developing it and as we're showing it to other people, they're like, this is incredible. We stopped the development for the video and we are now developing it as a full platform and it will launch sometime next year. I truly think that this thing is going to be transformational. It's pretty amazing. And we've got some of the best consultants in the world that have been involved in some of the most viral, most used applications teaching us and consulting with us. And it's going to be really cool.
Emma (35:59.186) We'll have to keep an eye out. You said early next year? Early next year.
Darren (36:02.086) Hopefully, yeah. It's complicated, but we've got a very, very big software. A software tycoon is the one that saw the concept of the app, and he was like, I'll pay for the whole thing.
Emma (36:25.498) One quick question from Nuno is, what's the rough amount that you plan to give out each year?
Darren (36:33.838) It's really good question. It depends on how many videos I can push out and what I can charge. It's difficult for me to project things. We are growing at such an exponential rate that I've realized that every time I set goals, even three months out, we exceed them by three times within that period. And as the channel grows and... the appreciation for it spreads, we can charge more money on the sponsorships, lots that we sell. We've also got some new opportunities where to monetize differently than any other way that people have monetized in YouTube before that we are waiting for some changes in the way that Google and YouTube work. But we'll be able to take advantage of it, and we should be able to at least double the revenue that we earn on every video. But we will spend as much as we can. I'm very, proud of the fact that we give 96% of all of the revenue that we have directly to the programs that we're doing. We are only spending 4% of that on the administrative side of things. We don't have luxury anything. I don't have nice offices. I have the corner of the warehouse that we keep the props in for main channel. I have a strong belief just from my own past that people when they make a donation they want to see a large percentage going to the cause that they're giving it to. They don't want to see it going to expense accounts and you know there's a lot of big charities that spend more on mail every year than our entire budget is. So I don't want to be like that. want be an organization that puts as much back into the work that we do as we possibly can. So the more we can earn, the more we'll give. But I'd love to see Beast Philanthropy in the $75 million range in the next year or two, and exceed $100 million within three years. and I think we will get there. We're definitely tracking towards it.
Emma (39:09.042) So Grace Adams asks, would Jimmy or the business ever consider taking a public pledge to give a certain amount to effective charities like the 10 % pledge, where you give 10 % of your income until you retire to charities improving the lives of others? She also gave some examples of different people that have done this. Chris Anderson, who's the head of TED, YouTuber Ali Abdaal a number of people who have done this and that they've also inspired. than 1,500 other people to pledge and give in this way. Yeah, so she's curious about whether you would ever consider doing something like
Darren (39:44.195) Jimmy has publicly said a bunch of times that he intends to give away everything and I think that he will. You know with the staggering wealth that Jimmy has been able to generate, he lives a very modest life. Jimmy lives in a normal house in a normal neighborhood. You would never in a million years think that was the house that he lived in. He doesn't drive any fancy car. He drives a very reasonable car. I mean, we probably buy 40 or 50 Lambos a year and we blow them up with tanks and throw them over into hydraulic presses and give them away to people. But he doesn't drive one himself and he never will. That's not Jimmy. And he has a number of times publicly said that it's his intention to give away everything. But at the stage that he is at now, Jimmy is investing everything back into his growth. It's amazing what he's building and what he's accomplished. He's just turned 26 years old. But at this particular stage, as much as he can, he invests back into all of his businesses and endeavors. But he still gives a very generous amount of money
Emma (41:20.38) So there were lots of different questions about whether you'd consider working in different areas and under what conditions you might consider different causes. I thought I'd just go through them individually because they're all a little bit different. Yeah, one of them was whether, and I don't know if you're familiar with the organization GiveWell, but one of them was whether you would consider working with GiveWell to do something like delivering malarial bed nets or vitamin A supplementation.
Darren (41:50.666) Yeah, I get I'll probably get around 200 solicitations a day for people asking us to do projects with them and you know, we keep them, we have right now probably 14 different projects that are on the schedule eight of them are actively you know Some of the projects that we do take a year, maybe even longer to do. We're building a burn center in Ukraine. That takes a year to build. There are so many different causes and so many different issues that we want to touch on. Very familiar with GiveWell, very familiar with how effective... anti -malarial and anti -parasitic medications on the impact that they have and yeah, fast as we can crank the videos out and undertake the projects and we'll keep on doing this as much as we possibly can with the broadest diversity and One of the things that I also want to do is I do not want to advocate this is better than that or I'm not an expert. I'm not qualified to make those determinations, but I want to teach people, find the thing that you care about, investigate it yourself, learn about it, and participate in it. Interestingly enough, I gave a speech a couple of weeks ago and it was.. A bunch of very successful people all go away on a trip together and they bring their families with them and they have a number of speakers and I was a speaker over there and the hall was full and there were I think every child that had come with their parents came to watch the speech because it was beast related and which I said they had never seen a single kid attend one of the lectures before. a six year old girl got up and she said, what should I do to help? And I said, that's not for me to tell you. And this is what my whole philosophy is with the channel. I want everybody to consider all of the things. Find the thing that speaks to you the most. Find... and charity that you think is doing the best job addressing the issue and if you can't find a charity that's doing it in the best way that you think it should be done, if you have an idea to try something else, go and try that. I said I don't want to answer this because I don't want to confine you to a way of thinking. I want every person to find a way that they A lot of the stuff that we are now focusing on in the videos is trying to highlight the ordinary people who become extraordinary people because they do one thing. One of my favorite projects that we did was with a kid that had 50 meal swipes left over at the end of the semester on his food card and it irritated him that it was going to go to waste. So he went and he swiped out 50 meals and he went and he gave it out to homeless people. And that started, ignited a spark in him. And now I think this year he's going to distribute more than 40 million pounds of food and he's seeded other operations around the world And each one of those five years will be doing 40 or 50 million pounds of food. And it's these new ideas. And the way that he does it is he looked at all of the food that is produced and goes into landfill before it goes into somebody's plate. And said, this is ridiculous. We grow enough food to feed every food insecure person in the entire country, but we don't deliver it. goes, so he figured out where to plug in, how to create a solution to capture the food before it goes to the landfill You know, huge amount of produce is sent to landfills while it's still got a week to two weeks before it goes back. But a retailer doesn't want to buy apples if they've only got nine days shelf life on it. at the start of the ninth day it gets shipped to a landfill. Well, if we could get that to a food bank instead of a landfill So there's so many innovative ways that we can approach old problems and do that kind of stuff. sorry, I got a little bit of A and B there. I don't even remember what the original question was.
Emma (46:43.615) you're good. Well, I think, yeah, there were number of questions and maybe I'll ask you a few other categories. think, yeah, people I think seem to have a general curiosity about which kinds of issues or, you know, are you open to different topics or, right, making videos about different topics. And it sounds like you have a general approach of openness of like, yeah, let's, you know, want to show a range of things. One area that a few people asked about charity for animals and animal welfare and particularly around factory farming. And it sounds like you have a background in working with animals. So yeah, I'd be particularly curious if that's something that you thought about.
Darren (47:22.578) I absolutely, well, for my own personal thing, I started with an animal shelter. That was how I discovered my own appreciation for charity. And it is still a very important topic to me. My cat is lying at my feet over here right now. So we did do a project last year where we... Expanded a dog shelter and gave them a lot of the resources that they needed to continue We are currently working on two projects that are animal related. I haven't done anything factory farming yet. I would like to I Another thing that I have to consider on all of the topics that we do is whether we'd be violating YouTube terms of service. Obviously we don't want to cross the line and not, factory farming would not be one of those, but there are some topics if we get into human trafficking or things like that, that it becomes a gray area about whether YouTube would object to it or not, give us a channel strike. So some topics are unfortunately, as much as I'd like to address them, it's going to be too upsetting to the audience. I also have to be cognizant of the fact that a lot of our audience is our kids and I don't want to give them anything that traumatizes them. know, again, factory farming is not a perfect example, but I've got to be careful in some of the issues that are more graphic or about how we do it in a way that isn't... I don't ever want people to watch one of our videos and feel depressed or sad. I don't mind if we take them through an emotional journey on the thing, but I always want to leave them feeling uplifted. That's going to be a consideration. If we could do something really effective, if we could tell the story in a great way. Factory farming is something that would definitely need to be addressed.
Emma (49:51.152) Yeah, maybe related. I'd be curious. I have sort of a follow up question to this was one category of work that people were curious about was work that might be less flashy or work that is harder to explain. So somebody talked about child immunizations in particular that this is really cost effective and scalable, but it's not particularly flashy to show that a child did not get a disease six months after they were vaccinated or something. And so this person was curious about what ways do you creatively work through those kinds of challenges to make the work seem compelling when it might be an area that is harder to explain or less flashy in some way.
Darren (50:29.79) Yeah, showing children getting immunized and saying that they didn't get sick would not be an engaging video. But showing a kid that didn't get vaccinated and did get sick does tell a story. So there are approaches to go there, but there's also sensitivity. You know, there's a handful of people, we do see criticism online about our approach and I tell people like on YouTube we have a 99 .6 positive rating which is unprecedented it's incredible but that means that 0 .4 % of people for whatever reason I don't like our approach I don't like the way that we do content it's a tiny tiny little population but when we have 25 million subscribers that means that there's a hundred thousand people that disagree with our approach and now go and they make noise on Twitter and everything and they criticize us and you know, so we We have to be very cognizant of the project we take and we don't ever want to be exploitive We don't ever want to this is not about patting ourselves in the back or generating revenue getting views or getting famous or anything. Jimmy doesn't need any of that. Jimmy's got all of that that he wants with the main channel. You know, We do have to find ways that we can do it in a respectful and dignified way for the people that we are using in the video to not do it in a way that they feel exploited or embarrassed or anything like that. Sometimes you've got to figure out where that line is and not cross that line. you know, I don't really, it's never our intention to exploit in any way. we don't make, Jimmy invests millions of dollars into the philanthropy a year and the time that Jimmy invests into the philanthropy is probably more valuable than the money that he invests, you know. But we have to, be careful that we're not being exploitive on the population. We never do. I mean, it's never a condition that we will only treat you if you're in the video. That's ridiculous. When we did 1 ,000 blind people, we actually did 1 ,771 blind people. There were maybe six or seven characters that we featured in the video. That means that there were 1 ,764 that got cataract surgery that weren't in the video. It's never a precondition that you have to be in the video. It's never a co ercion It's actually the complete opposite. We go to a place and everybody wants to be in the video. And particularly when they understand that their participation in the video is going to... help other people because of our model and more people at once and more money we make, more people we help and people understand that. yeah, we could tell a story about vaccination by showing effects if you don't get vaccinated, but making sure that we don't cross lines.
Emma (54:04.259) Yeah. Another question in this category was if you ever think about, and I'm curious because I think you just have a lot of videos, so I have not, I can't say that I've watched every single video, but do ever think about maybe scaling up or going back to projects or work that you've done and maybe scaling up those projects or reinvesting and, you know, back into the work that you've done before?
Darren (54:28.948) Absolutely. The very last video that we did, we came across, she's a TikToker. Her name is Dora Monoyambay. And she, an extraordinary woman. She lives in Zambia. She lived in, know, a big city over there. She has educated. She actually got a job. You know, she could, she was going to move to China and she had a job in China. had a life set ahead of her, went with one of her friends that came from a rural village in Zambia and went to go spend a week with her there and she saw some things that were going on with the kids over there that really upset her and she decided that she was moving out there and she was going to start a sanctuary for these kids and she's built a school there and she's just an incredible person. She raises all of the funds on her TikTok account that they didn't have electricity in. We saw Doreen and I was so impressed with her, we decided that we were going to put a solar power array for her. So we ordered a solar power array and when it had been installed, we went to go and visit her When we went there, we saw that there was so much more that they could use. They didn't have clean water or enough water or anything. So we went back. We tripled their solar capacity. We gave them a, we did a proper hydrological study. We put a proper well in. We put starlink in because they didn't have any communications. We bought her a new car. saw that there was more that needed to be done there and we went back. I also, I do have to be careful. I want to help as much as we can and it's really difficult because every single project that we do, I'd love to support them in ongoing for forever. But you know, I do want to spread our resources, you know, as far as we can and more than that I also want to draw attention to more organizations so going back to the same one over and over because the videos are such a big part of our revenue engine. when I go and I feature the same place you know more than once it's an opportunity lost to highlight another organization doing incredible work somewhere else in the world another issue that needs attention so it's hard I mean there's no easy I think like one of the things that frustrates me the most is people are so critical they see the world in binary terms but when you actually try to think about how to deliver the the most impact in the best way possible you realize there is no black and white there's ten thousand shades of grey
Darren (57:49.068) I don't know what the best answer is and I never have said that we know the best answer to any of these questions. The only thing that I want to highlight is for every person out there to consider and think about the issue themselves and find the way that appeals to them or they think is the best one. All I want to do is I want to get more people participating.
Emma (58:13.592) That's very relatable. I'm just nodding. When you start thinking about it that way, right where you're like, wow, there's so much that you could do to help. And obviously you all have a ton of resources and an engine to do that. And so yeah, those decisions aren't easy. it's not always black and white to what the path forward is. Maybe just, In this bucket of questions, are there any causes or kinds of work that you'd be excited to do more of or that you haven't done that you're maybe something that's coming up in the videos that you said it, you know, queued up this year or something?
Darren (58:48.462) There's so many. Every one of them is exciting in its own way. I don't know that there's any particular thing that would say warrants any more attention over any other issue. But as long as we go there and we do things that actually make a difference and help the population in a meaningful and sustainable way, we have a lot of opportunities where people come to us and say, hey, let's do the biggest free distribution in history. we can bring these players to the table and we can go and give food to 2 million people in one week. And I'm like, that's great. for two weeks after that. But what happens when they run out of food? You know, I don't want to do one and done's. I want to put a, much rather build a school and give a major food distribution one time. The school will affect the community for decades, you know. The kids that get educated in the school will affect their community. We favor projects more like that. But no, there's no single cause. mean, we've got so many things. I'm just thinking about the projects that we have coming up. And there are some incredible projects that I'm really excited about. They're all very diverse.
Emma (01:00:21.027) So one sort of practical question from Forum user W Troy, says, there a way for organizations to apply or get on your radar if they want to partner with
Darren (01:00:32.175) They can email me at Darren at Beast Philanthropy .org and I'm happy to look at it. Like I said, we get a couple hundred a day of charities reaching out to us, people reaching out to us and everything. And we do sort of consider them, I'll put them into a database, you know. as we have capacity, but we can only do, up until now we've done 18 videos a year as a target. We are now moving to 24 videos a year. But that's only 24 opportunities. That's 10 % of what I get in one day. I wish that we could do much more, but it's impossible. But. You know, every now and then I get something, and somebody else sends something and I click on it and I'm Darren (01:01:36.15) Yeah, forget the waiting list. This one's going to the top. Like, we're doing this one right now. There's an issue that was brought to me about child slavery. And when I saw it, was so heartbreaking, heartbreaking that I immediately sent it to our coordinator and I said, find a way to get this on the schedule as soon as we possibly can. But yeah, just email me your best ideas. Emma (01:02:08.195) Yeah, maybe my follow -up question, think a little bit related to, seemed like people in general were curious about, yeah, that you have, you know, a volume of opportunities or something. And yeah, maybe when you're looking at the inbox, what are the things that, like, how do you make decisions of those hundreds of possible opportunities? How do you narrow that down?
Darren (01:02:27.33) Well, the first thing is always do right by the community that we are going to serve. So it has to be something where we go and we help and we do it in a way that is actually going to benefit the community in a meaningful way and it's going to be long lasting. that's the first filter. Then beyond that, is this an issue that people are generally aware of or is it something that people aren't aware of? I mean, there's a lot of things that we come across. I've been more inclined towards charity for a long time than a lot of other people have and yet there are still issues that I'd never even thought of before. Like one of them that we did a couple of years ago was learning about kids that are born on the streets or in very poor communities in global south countries. never, if they're not born in a hospital, they never official paperwork, are not citizens of their own country. They can't register for school, they can't open up a bank account, they can't get a passport, they can't get an education, all because they are undocumented in their own countries. know, it's an issue that has never even crossed my mind. So if we find something that's an issue that... I think is an important issue for people to understand that's going to move it up a notch. If there's a subject matter that I know that I can tell a good story, a compelling story that we can utilize the channel to its full potential, that's going to elevate it.
Darren (01:04:13.014) If I know that I've got partners that would come into that particular project with us, either a company that is sometimes easy, some of the issues relate to some of the people that would be interested in advertising on the thing. So it makes a lot of sense if we're talking about internet. to maybe approach a company like Starlink or something like that and ask them if they would sponsor the video. If I know that I've some help on the financial side of that, that will elevate it. There's so many different considerations that go into it. We just go through it, but unfortunately there's so many opportunities to pick from that we never have it.
Emma (01:05:06.916) Yeah, So one question that John Salter asked, think someone else as well asked this was, how could the effective altruism community be useful to you in helping you do more good? They wondered if there are any particular challenges to your work right now. Some of the examples they gave were donations, roles that you're trying to fill, big unanswered questions that affect your philanthropy. People were curious how they could help.
Darren (01:05:37.166) Well, I'll start off by saying that your community is already doing the thing that is the most important to me and that is being involved, doing something. I love that. I love it when you come across people who do care about these things already and are looking for ways to contribute. When we originally started Beast Philanthropy the idea was much smaller than what it grew into. I say we had no idea when we started this what it was, but Beast Philanthropy knew what it was and it showed us what it was, you know? And we're in this position now where I realize that we have this incredible effect on a massive population. We can change the way that three generations think, millennials, Gen Z's and Gen Alphas We can literally have an incredible impact on them. And we can change these kids, especially through the app that we have, that we are developing. I say that I believe that most people are kind, but they don't know it. They haven't had the opportunity to discover it for themselves. that's why we want to use the app. We want to use the app to get people to go in and... and have that experience of what it feels like that when you go and you do something for a cause that you care about, you feel better. You enjoy it. You realize that giving is also receiving. So I found that we're suddenly in this unprecedented position to affect so many people tens of millions of people or you know Jimmy has 640 million subscribers cross -platform now and he's doing a lot of philanthropic content and when you're talking about 640 million people let's just call it 450 so that we remove duplicates if somebody is subscribed to him on TikTok and YouTube. And they're in narrow age range that we are talking to most of the young people in the world at this point and they love Jimmy and everybody trusts him and loves him and listens to him. The cynicism when he says something isn't there, they accept it as, know, but... We find ourselves in such an extraordinary position that we hadn't anticipated a plan for. just like every other charity, the more money we have, the more resources that we have, the more we can do and the further we can take this. I didn't want to, when Jimmy offered me this job, I didn't want to take it. I had worked really hard when I was young. sold my company, I started doing the charity work, but I did what I enjoyed doing. I went skydiving every weekend and I traveled all the time and went out with my friends every night and I didn't want to give that all up. I told him eventually that I'd do it, but I would start Beast Philanthropy because when Jimmy said to me that he been looking for somebody for two years and he hadn't found somebody until he came across me, I went to bed that night and I kept on thinking, if I say no and Jimmy doesn't find somebody else and his career continues on the trajectory that it's on, what would happen if I said no and Beast's philanthropy never started? That would make me the most selfish person in the world. And so I told him the next day that I would consider doing it and I would form the organization, build it, and then hand it off to somebody else. When we started realizing how much impact we are having beyond the work that we are doing, That was when I started realizing how important and powerful this is. And I don't want to see this opportunity get wasted because I think that the world needs it. The way that we think as human beings now, with everybody being so selfish and thinking about themselves all the time and trying to accumulate as much as they can for themselves, it comes at the expense of other people. You you can't have people that have got billions and billions of dollars without having, you know, tens of thousands of people that are living in poverty if we can have an effect on people and teach them to give not everything that they've got, I'd never advocate for that, but if we could teach people to give a little bit of what they've got. If you've got, instead of buying a $250 pair of sneakers, go and buy a $200 pair of sneakers and buy two pairs of sneakers and go give them to homeless people. and give one Saturday morning, a Sunday morning, every quarter, go volunteer for a thing. If we can start getting people to think just a little bit more about sharing rather than having, nobody has to give a lot. If everybody, many more people give a little bit.
Darren (01:11:05.984) It became really important to me and it's very important to me to see this through because we have a lot of other opportunities now to open Beast philanthropy. There's a lot of other creators that want to start utilizing the platform that we have built. You know, we talk about radical transparency, but when I meet with foundations or... billionaires, they tell them that we won't just give you our 990s, we'll give you a login to our QuickBooks account because I have absolutely nothing to hide. I'm proud of the way that we run it, you know. creators are starting to approach us now and saying that they want to utilize the infrastructure that we built. They want to learn from the lessons that we have learned. They want to know how to pick the right charities. They want to know how how to do this also we have the you know the opportunity to expand this to a much bigger organization that need resources for all of that as well so we're always looking at we have a unique opportunity in that we can sell advertising space in our videos so if there's anybody out there that has a business that you know wants to promote their business to an audience of 25 to 45 million people and they spend it with us. We are the only organization that I know that will take 100 % of that, put it into helping build a better world and using that as an example to other people for what they can do. So if you know somebody who wants to advertise, that would be great. I don't want to take donations away from EA or any Darren (01:12:47.15) charities, but you know, we could use money as well. Jimmy's really generous, but at this point, he shouldn't be the one in shouldering the entire burden himself for what we are doing. It's a much bigger, more important project than what we originally anticipated.
Emma (01:13:07.667) Maybe related to this question, you mentioned other content creators. Someone asked, let me see, Ludwig Bald, forum user, asked, what advice would you have for other people, filmmakers or people making content for YouTube who want to spread the ideas of effective charity and encourage giving? And what would you say they should focus on if that's what they want to do as well?
Darren (01:13:30.754) That's a great question. When we started, when Jimmy originally asked me to do this, we didn't know. It was an idea. Let's see if we can use YouTube to generate revenue to do something good in the world. I don't know if your audience understands how big social media is and how incredibly profitable it is, but I'll put it this way. The Super Bowl got 117 million views last year. Just about every video that Jimmy does now gets 150 million or more views. you start realizing how big it actually is. If you look at every single person that's ever watched the Super Bowl since it started in 1968, it comes out to 4 .2 billion people. We get 3 .3 billion views a month. There 3 billion to 3 .3 billion views a month right now on main channel alone. These numbers are staggering. There's a lot of people that spend a lot of time analyzing everything in social media trends. They analyze the thumbnails in a video and what colors appeal to people. What's going to make a person click on your video rather than another video? What keywords in the title perform best on YouTube? So there's a lot of companies that are doing a lot of data analysis on this. And we went to four of them. When we were contemplating this and we said we want to start a philanthropy based channel, what do you think? And all four of them came up to us and they came back to us and said this is the worst idea we've ever heard. This is absolutely guaranteed it's going to fail. Charity is boring and depressing. People do not care about it and you're not going to get any engagement. They come to social media when they're bored and they want to be entertained
Darren (01:15:32.354) Well, the only word that I heard them say was, It's like, okay, we've got to figure out a way that we give people content that they're going to enjoy watching, that they're going to make the choice to watch. I was going through something with some of my colleagues just before this call and we're going and we're looking at some of the biggest charities in the world and we're going to their YouTube channels and looking at the number of... followers that they have and you know one of the biggest charities in the country had a cumulative total of followers on their channel less than what we added last week in subscribers their videos have literally had some of them had Less than a hundred views some of them had maybe a couple hundred views, you know Some of the some of them had like three or four million views over the last seven years This is the thing. Entertain people, give them a reason to watch. Don't... Don't... A video that is essentially just a PowerPoint presentation with bullet points. It's boring. Don't lecture people. Don't depress them. Don't... Make them care about the issue. Entertain them with it. convince them subtly about the thing and leave them feeling uplifted. But give people a reason to watch a video by their own volition and not because you're asking them to watch a video or sitting with them and say, watch this video that we just made. And they sit there just waiting for it to be over. And then when you understand how YouTube works as well,
Darren (01:17:25.886) YouTube is measuring people's engagement with the video the whole way through. How many people are given an impression of the thumbnail? How many people clicked on that thumbnail? How many people watched the video? What portion of the video did they watch? How quickly did they abandon it? If people start watching a video and then they abandon it, the algorithm deprioritizes and it stops giving impressions. you're not going to get a chance for a person to click on it if YouTube's not serving it up. focus on giving a person a reason to watch your video and then they'll watch it. It can't be you try to force down your talking points or whatever down their throat, it's not going to work.
Emma (01:18:17.404) That was kind of a niche question that I had was, I'm curious if you know off the top of your head any stats around how many people do watch most of the videos that, know, cause I, yeah, some people I know that it can drop off, but I'm curious on your videos on average, do people watch most of it or is it about half or, know It varies.
Darren: The statistics, it's amazing when you have massive engagements how you can see in every single one, the statistics always trend to the same levels. You can look at it Usually, 30 % of the people will abandon the video in the first 30 seconds. You know, because people will click in the video, see what the intro is, and you've got to try and hook them in that first 30 seconds. And then carry them through. Jimmy's an absolute master at that. Jimmy, you know, the retention in the video, how to build the suspense, how to keep them engaged with it. It's a little bit harder to do with charity because I think that people realize at this point they see the problem and they know that by the end of the video we've got to solve it. We will have solved it, you know. So it's a little bit more tricky, but there are certain things that we can do and I... always talking to our analysts and know creative people about like how can we you know keep the audience engaged but YouTube it's called the average view duration gets measured and you want to get people to the end and it's easy when it there's a competition on main channel and people want to see who wins the competition at the end. That's easy to keep them engaged. But we're still trying to figure it out. We haven't perfected everything. We're very far ahead of the pack and we don't withhold any of the information. I'll share anything that we have figured out with any charities because I want to see them build their engagement. I want to see them build support. So I think it would be profoundly selfish for us to hold back the information that we have. We'll share it, but we're still evolving. We're still working it out. Nobody has ever done this before. There's not a path to follow. There's not a, this works and this doesn't work. We have to keep on trying new things and we get better and better at it with every video.
Emma (01:21:06.854) Yeah, so much of this resonates that, yeah, sometimes I think charity is not necessarily a flashy thing that's easy to explain or, know, right. And yeah, so trying to make it interesting and engaging for people, yeah, on platforms that they're using every day is like, right, there's so much opportunity there, but not without challenges for sure. Yeah.
Darren (01:21:25.656) Well, one of the things that we found that works really well is you don't go then start a video and say, there's a billion people around the world who don't have access to clean drinking water. Rather start by showing kids and get them to like those kids, get them to care about those kids, you know, see that they sweet children that are so excited and welcoming and friendly and everything. When they care about those kids and they see those kids drinking out of a dirty river now, like I said earlier, they've attached to those kids, they feel bad for them. And then later on all around the world. In all of the videos you'll find that we focus on two or three characters that illustrate the story, but that we can demonstrate the issue in human terms rather than academic terms and bullet points. Nobody cares about that.
Emma (01:22:36.806) Yeah, and it also sounds like what you're saying maybe is like that if you ground it in the human connection, then you can share the data or, you know, if it's like, wow, a billion people are affected by this. Did you know that? Then maybe that seems to resonate more when you feel like they've already had the sort of set up. Gotcha.
Darren (01:22:52.3) Yeah. Well, when they, if we started with this a billion people, people don't, it doesn't sink in without access to water. But if you show them a small population, if you show them one or two on the planet thing, like we, we would, we focused mostly on one father's experience with his young son and what he had to go through to get his son there and how worried he was. And you get the audience to feel a connection to the father and what he's going through. Then it resonates much more because people understand the issue differently.
Emma (01:23:41.35) That's the questions that I have. just want to say a very big thank you. Thank you for letting us pick your brain and hear more about the work that you do. A lot of this resonates. It's been very cool to hear more about your work.
Darren (01:23:55.79) Well, I really appreciate it. I'm a big fan of what you guys are doing and I'm very grateful to all of your followers for being the people that actually do step up and show an interest and try to make a difference. Let's spread the message. Let's get other people to start caring about things and see if we can't build engagement. I actually think that we will in the long run. we will have tens of millions of kids that will grow up into adults that are a little bit more inclined to give it little bit more than they would have. And I see that as the best path forward for humanity. Spread it, bring your friends around when you go, if you're going to go volunteer, invite your friends to come with you, get them involved. Help flip that switch. It's the easiest thing in the world is telling somebody the other night, it's like if you've never tasted a food and somebody says, taste this and you taste it and you're like, my God, that was really good. And now you like that food and you'll go buy it the rest of your life. Charity is exactly the same way. Most people have not tasted it. just give them that first taste. Let them do something. Charity isn't just clicking on a link somewhere confirming that you're saying 50 bucks. Charity, rather go and buy a blanket for somebody who's freezing in the cold outside and then you understand what it means. Once you do that once, it's easy. It's a decision that you've made that will affect you for the rest of your life.
Emma (01:25:35.654) Yeah. Thank you so much.
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Information on the current context, not directly related to the AMA:
There seems to be new concerning claims and discussions about Mr. Beast and the illegality of his business model.
See : https://youtu.be/DJvDLqDAM60?si=5Rc78_1GTBgmmRrP https://youtu.be/k5xf40KrK3I?si=caiCJ0u7AaUeL2VX And more that will pop up with a simple YouTube search.
I'm not weighing anything in terms of credence, I haven't done any dutiful scrutinizing myself. However this is reminiscing enough of previous mistakes that were made that I hope a constructive conversation can be had on the side of any willing partner before further engaging with Beast Philanthropy if this ever becomes an option.
I watched the second video, which appears to be the source of these accusations. The main claims are:
This is only the first part of a series which the author implies will cover allegations against Ava Tyson, dangerous conditions on set, and something about Beast Philanthropy. The latter isn’t implied to be much more than charity-washing FWIW, but we’ll see.
I haven't yet watched the linked videos due to their length. Would you say these ChatGPT-generated summaries fairly represent their content and claims?
Thanks so much for organising this! I think a lot of people (me included) assumed the foundation's goal was to solicit donations directly, but clearly Darren sees it more like capacity building—which makes total sense given their younger audience!
Their focus on inspiring that audience is a real challenge for EA. To recommend the most effective charities is (a) boring (it would be the same video over and over) and (b) requires making negative comparisons to less effective charities. I don't think Beast Philanthropy could be a good vehicle for effective altruist ideas without compromising its own mission of remaining interesting; rather, I think from an EA perspective it's best-placed to expand the very very top of the funnel of people who might one day end up here.
I think that the best engagement going forward (if at all; see controversies below—I don't take this lightly) would be as GiveDirectly did—they could work with individual EA charities that meet their conditions to raise awareness of those specific interventions.
(I'm also interested in this gamified app—I'm not sure it would be the best fit for most EA charities, which aren't really labour-constrained, but it got me thinking about gamifying finding the most effective opportunities)