Introduction
In May 2024, Ambitious Impact (AIM) ran a program to incubate new effective giving initiatives (EGIs) in partnership with Giving What We Can. In short, EGIs focus on raising awareness and funneling public and philanthropic donations to the most cost-effective charities worldwide.
In the last few years, several Effective Giving Initiatives, such as Doneer Effectief, Effektiv Spenden, and Giving What We Can, have moved millions in funding to the best charities globally. The success of these and other similar organizations suggests that further initiatives in this space could be highly beneficial, given that many highly effective charities are bottlenecked by access to funding.
This article introduces five new effective giving initiatives incubated through the program we ran earlier this year in their own words. It summarizes their country of operation, near-term plans, targets, and any room for additional seed funding.[1]
Organization Summaries
Ellis Impact
Co-founders: Fernando Martin-Gullans, Helene Kortschak
Country of operation: United States (New York City)
Website: www.ellisimpact.org
Email address: fernando@ellisimpact.org, helene@ellisimpact.org
Seed grant: $84,000
Background (why is this a promising country/angle for an EGI?)
While Americans are the global leaders in total charitable giving, with over $450 billion donated annually, they currently give less than 0.5% of it to the most effective charities. Ellis Impact aims to expand effective giving by focusing on high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in New York City.
Why HNWIs? Charitable donations are overwhelmingly heavy-tailed. For example, less than 5% of donors account for 40% of donations at existing EGIs such as Giving What We Can and Effektiv Spenden.
Why New York City? Home to the largest number of millionaires (>350,000) and a GDP of $1.2 trillion, NYC has the highest wealth concentration in the world and is more economically powerful than many countries with existing EGIs (e.g., Netherlands, Sweden, Norway). It also has the highest charitable giving in the US, totaling $20 billion per year in itemized donations.
Near-term plans
Our first six months will focus on expanding our local network of prospective donors by attending events (e.g., networking events, conferences, galas) and tapping into existing and under-explored communities in NYC (e.g. EA Finance). We plan to further engage prospective donors through 1-1 advising and hosting our first lean, in-person events to raise awareness around effective giving, bring together like-minded individuals, and introduce them to cause area experts.
Targets (reach/giving multiplier/etc.)
Our minimum goal for our first nine months is to counterfactually raise our seed funding amount in public donations (>$84,000). Our ambitious goal is to raise three times as many counterfactual donations as we received in seed funding (i.e., $252,000).
Room for more funding
In late July, we raised $84,000 from the Seed Funding Network, allowing us to run for nine months. We would require an additional $20,000 to extend our runway to 12 months, decreasing the risk of having to shut down before we can demonstrate good results since, according to the experience of other HNW donor advisors, donor relationships potentially take longer than nine months to cultivate. Any funding on top of that would be used for hosting and attending additional and higher-quality events to meet and engage prospective donors.
If you are interested in supporting our efforts in other ways, we are currently:
- Looking for warm introductions to prospective donors in NYC as well as super connectors and ambassadors for future warm introductions. If you know someone you think we should meet, please contact Fernando at fernando@ellisimpact.org.
- Assembling a team of skilled volunteers to support event planning and digital marketing. If you have experience running events and are based in NYC, or have experience with content marketing, copywriting, and SEO and would like to contribute, please contact Helene at helene@ellisimpact.org.
Benefficienza
Co-founders: Luca Stocco, Sebastian Trenckmann
Country of operation: Italy
Website: www.benefficienza.it
Email address: info@benefficienza.it
Seed grant: $83,000
Background (why is this a promising country/angle for an EGI?)
Italy offers a promising yet underutilized market for effective giving. It has roughly half the GDP of Germany (home to Europe’s largest EGI) but donates twice as much in relative terms, leading to similarly sized donation markets. However, Italy does not currently have a domestic EGI, and the idea of effective giving has not yet spread in the country. This is likely due to low English proficiency, which poses barriers to accessing global effective giving resources (predominantly available in English). Resources on effective giving in Italian are almost completely absent.
Near-term plans
We will replicate and build upon the model of the most successful EGIs. Our strategy centers around our website—which we aim to launch by the end of August—with localized content on effective giving, effective charity recommendations, quick user support, and a donation platform through which users can make tax-deductible donations. To attract traffic, we will cherry-pick the most successful tactics from existing EGIs—including podcast appearances, SEO-optimised blog posts, newspaper features, and building an ambassador network—while testing other outreach tactics to improve our strategy iteratively.
Targets (reach/giving multiplier/etc.)
We aim to raise $550,000 in counterfactual donations in the first year, achieving a giving multiplier of over 4.5.
Room for more funding
We have secured funding for 9 months and are open to receiving additional donations. With more funding, we will have more time to capitalize on what we have learned and deepen our relationships with HNWIs, typically the source of most donations. This will decrease the risk of shutting down due to insufficient opportunity for trial and error. Please reach out if you are interested in supporting Benefficienza, and we can discuss funding opportunities in detail.
We are also looking for warm introductions to potential ambassadors and donors in Italy. If you know someone you think we should meet, let us know at info@benefficienza.it.
Mieux Donner
Co-founders: Jennifer Stretton, Romain Barbe
Country of operation: France, French-speaking Switzerland
Website: mieuxdonner.org
Email address: jennifer@mieuxdonner.org, romain@mieuxdonner.org
Seed grant: $95,000
Background
France is among the top 10 countries globally in terms of charitable donations. With a higher rate of private donations compared to other major European countries and an annual donation amount of €8.5 billion, France presents a fertile ground for promoting effective giving, especially as French citizens have the lowest English proficiency in Northern Europe, limiting their access to effective donations concepts.
Switzerland has the third-highest number of millionaires worldwide, and Geneva, Switzerland, has the second-highest concentration of millionaires. This wealth concentration presents a significant opportunity for promoting effective giving. As the first French organization dedicated to marketing effective giving, Mieux Donner aims to introduce these high-net-worth individuals to the most impactful global charities.
Additionally, while Effektiv Spenden offers tax deductibility for donations in Switzerland, the French-speaking region remains underrepresented due to language barriers. Mieux Donner has partnered with Effektiv Spenden to provide tax-deductible donation options for French speakers in Switzerland, filling a critical gap.
A note on effective giving in France: There is one other effective giving organization in France called Don Efficace - they are a research-focused organisations whose aim is to increase the tax-deductible portfolio of effective charities. Their strategy to increase donations to effective charities is to find effective charities within France that qualify for tax deductions. In comparison, Mieux Donner is an outreach-focused organization. Our strategy to increase donations to effective charities is to market the most effective charities, regardless of their tax deductibility status in France.
Near-term plans
Mieux Donner has already made significant strides, including registering the charity, launching a website and donation platform, establishing a presence on social media, organising our first event, and beginning to rank on SEO. In the near term, Mieux Donner plans to:
- Promote the 🔸10% Pledge in partnership with Giving What We Can (GWWC), encouraging donors to commit a portion of their income to highly effective charities.
- SEO objectives: Achieve top 10 rankings for key search terms within six months to increase visibility and reach.
- Offer donor advisory services: Provide personalised calls to advise donors on impactful giving opportunities.
- Email marketing campaign: Deploy targeted email campaigns to engage potential donors and supporters.
- Media and advocacy outreach: Engage with journalists, leading press outlets, and potential advocates to spread the message of effective giving.
- Prepare for the Giving Season: Focus efforts on the critical donation period of December, which accounts for 1/4 of annual charitable donations in France. This includes heightened ambassador outreach, content creation, giving season vouchers, and peer-to-peer fundraising initiatives.
Targets
Mieux Donner aims to secure $1 million in donations during its first year. By the fifth year, the organisation seeks to achieve a giving multiplier of 14x, meaning every euro invested in Mieux Donner will generate 14 euros in donations for the most effective charities globally. The target is to raise €3.5 million annually in counterfactual donations, significantly increasing support for high-impact organisations.
Room for more funding
Our seed funding is 90% of our frugal 9 month budget. This will allow us both to work full time on the project for 9 months with no funding for anything other than cofounder wages. We are looking for 25k to extend our runway to 12 months. This will enable us more time to prove our concept as SEO and brand awareness takes time. It will also allow us to afford freelance web developers to improve our donation platform and run paid ads.
We are looking for volunteers interested in web development, copywriting, social media marketing and event organisation. You can subscribe to updates and learn about future funding and support opportunities in our newsletter.
Effectief Geven
Co-founders: Mathieu Spillebeen and Jeroen De Ryck
Country of operation: Belgium
Website: https://www.effectiefgeven.be
Email address: mathieu@effectiefgeven.be, jeroen@effectiefgeven.be
Seed grant: None. We got ±50% of our budget for the first three years through a generous donation from a HNWI.
Background
Belgium is a relatively wealthy but small country in Western Europe. 6.5% of the population are millionaires, and 56% of Belgians donate. Yet, the concept of giving effectively is largely unknown. Belgium is an administratively complex country, with the northern part (Flanders) being Dutch-speaking and the southern part (Wallonia) being French-speaking. At the same time, this has some benefits. Doneer Effectief is already well established in the Netherlands and is the most successful EGI yet (in terms of euro raised per capita). Being able to copy a lot of their materials is a massive timesaver. Similarly, we can copy French material from Don Efficace and Mieux Donner that is already culturally adapted to the Walloon culture.
Near-term plans
- We will continue to expand our website with more content and donation advice specific to the Belgian legal and tax context.
- We are in contact with several well-known Belgian people willing to be ambassadors for our organization.
- We will roll out the next phase of our donation platform before the giving season, in collaboration with Doneer Effectief.
- Write blog posts for keywords and optimized for SEO
- Help and support donors with donating with personalized donor advice
- Organise and take part in events
- Engage with the media about effective giving
- Engage with influencers of potentially promising target audiences
- Maintain a bi-monthly newsletter
Targets
We aim to raise €240k in our first year, with a GM of 1.2. By year 3, we aim to expand this to €1M raised, with a GM of 4.
Room for more funding
As we’ve only managed to raise 30% of our yearly budget, we are still looking for €50k for us to dedicate a larger amount of time to make more significant progress by giving season, evaluate our first six months, and adjust our strategy based on those results. Additionally, we could dedicate more time to sorting tax deductibility for our donors and expanding to Wallonia by translating all content and outreach into French.
Impactful Giving
Co-founders: Chetan Kharbanda, Jesse Pagliuca, Krishna Veni
Country of operation: India
Website: impactfulgiving.in
Email address: team@impactfulgiving.in
Seed grant:$88,000
Background (why is this a promising country/angle for an EGI?)
The Massive Potential of India's Donation Market: India is the 4th largest donation market in the world, with approximately $15 billion donated annually. This market is projected to grow by 64% over the next five years, introducing a significant influx of new wealth holders. Current effective giving initiatives (EGIs) have found that new donors are especially receptive to effective giving concepts, making this segment highly promising. Despite this potential, there has been no systematic effort to build an ecosystem or promote the practice of effective giving within this expansive market.
Unique Opportunity to Give Locally: India is home to multiple highly effective charities, making them ideal for Indian donors. While most EGIs can reach only about 10% of their populations (those willing to donate internationally), focusing on local donations allows us to tap into a much larger donor base. By August 2024, we will have secured tax deductibility, offering donors a 50% rebate on their contributions and further encouraging local giving.
Bringing a Successful Model to a New Market: Our goal is to adopt successful strategies from other effective giving initiatives and tailor them to the Indian context, leveraging our understanding of Indian culture and context. Leveraging best practices, we will build a donation platform, promote the benefits of effective giving, and offer free 1:1 consultation services to large donors.
Near-term plans
We have registered as a legal entity and started building a network of trusted advisors and experts. As we prepare to launch our pilot in October 2024, we have completed user research, initiated partnerships with evaluators and charities for recommendations, tested key messages and content with our target segment, started building our brand, and are currently developing our website.
During our pilot phase, we plan to test the most promising outreach strategies, focusing on SEO, content marketing, securing media coverage, partnering with ambassadors, and personal networking. These strategies are specifically tailored to the Indian market, with content customized for our target segments and informed by audience research. To enhance engagement, we will maintain a dedicated helpdesk and offer exclusive, free, one-on-one philanthropic consultations for donors.
Targets (reach/giving multiplier/etc.)
We aim to raise $272,800 in our first year, more than double our operating budget. By the fifth year, our goal is to generate $13.6 million annually in counterfactual donations—nearly 20 times our budget. This would mean that every dollar invested in us generates $20 in donations that otherwise would not have been raised.
Room for more funding
We have secured 70% of our first-year budget through the Seed Funding Network and are open to additional funding. This budget will cover our expenses for the first 7-8 months, but the tight schedule presents challenges. Although we will have time to test our core strategy during the pilot program, there may not be sufficient time for necessary adjustments. The limited timeframe also restricts our ability to build long-term relationships with donors, risking a loss of momentum. Additionally, the full benefits of our SEO and donation platform efforts will take longer to materialize.
We are also seeking volunteers to work on content writing, copyediting, and social media marketing. If you're interested, please contact us at team@impactfulgiving.in.
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Disclaimer: These organizations are all independent of both Ambitious Impact and Giving What We Can. As such, they will make their own educated choices of which charities to promote and where to donate funds.
Great to understand that more and more organizations are being formed and that they still have room for more funding to grow.
However, when is someone going to raise (or continue to discuss) the point that most of the EA funds are being given to only 2 organizations? (At least for Animal Welfare). If you scope around on the websites of all these organizations, they will eventually disburse whatever they make to only ACE evaluated NGOs (at the moment, only 2 names stand out for many years).
I'm not taking the credit away from these 2 organizations, which are amazing btw. But at some point we need to come back talking about: 1) fair distribution of funds; 2) new systems of evaluating who is or isn't effective in the animal welfare movement; 3) come back to the discussion of who's evaluating the evaluators?
I hope I find more people that agree with my thinking out there. This can become a bigger discussion. Thank you!
(Disclaimer: I work at Giving What We Can but I was not involved in this program, and this is just my personal take)
Hi Daniela, could you clarify what you mean by "most of the EA funds are being given to only 2 organizations? (At least for Animal welfare)"
There is no consensus on what counts as "EA funds", but people usually include Open Philanthropy, which is by far the largest funder and funds many organizations. Are you referring to the EA Animal Welfare Fund? They also support many organizations.
Many national effective giving orgs currently only show The Humane League and Good Food Institute on their website, but that does not imply "most of the EA funds" are being given to them. Also, Giving What We Can allows donors to support several other projects in animal welfare, I imagine that as other effective giving organizations grow, they might also add more projects if there's enough interest from donors (but I'm just speculating.)
On "evaluating the evaluators" you might be interested in this page from Giving What We Can and the evaluation of ACE and the EA Animal Welfare Fund
These are very exciting! Could you say more about the foci of these orgs within EA cause areas?
Cause area focus will be determined by the initiatives themselves so I'll leave it to any of the founders to comment on this further should they wish to!
My quick sense is that most are cause open and will end up similar to GWWC or effektiv-spenden.
For a sense of what this might look like see what the GWWC research team found when they looked into how our donors’ giving is distributed across cause areas in our recent 2020-2022 impact evaluation:
*These results based on data from for both pledge and non-pledge donations, however, we analysed only donations to charities and funds for which we recorded more than $500,000 USD received over 2020–2022. See our impact evaluation for a complete picture of what the data shows.
That's very helpful. Do you have a rough idea proportions within creating a better future, e.g. climate, nuclear, bio, and AI?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MF9bAdISMOMV_aOok9LMyKbxDEpOsvZ9VO8AfwsS6_o/
Probably majority AI, given the organizations being given to and the distribution of funding. This contrasts with the non-GWWC EG organizations in Europe, where I believe there is a much greater focus on climate, mainly to meet donors where they are at.
Note that I expect more recent numbers will be significantly different, if nothing else because of this $10,000,000 donation to the Giving Green Fund (which is more than the total for "Creating a better future" in the linked spreadsheet)
Would there be interest in someone coordinating an Effective Giving Fund at some point, so that those of us interested in these kinds of orgs could defer our decisions on which specific national/regional orgs to support to people with more time to investigate? (Tax advantages would be a plus as well.)
My quick take is that I'd have to invest a decent bit of time into evaluating five different countries/regions, as well as five different organizations, in order to make an intelligent allocation. So I'd probably allocate suboptimally. Hopefully that task will get even harder over time as more orgs of this type launch![1]
This is an off-year for donations for my wife and me, so this comment is not me seeking advice on allocating this year.
An interesting idea!
To my knowledge this is not something we have any plans for(see Luke's comment below). I can see a world in future where something like this would be useful though as the number of effective giving orgs grows and the levels of success between orgs becomes more apparentI actually think that GWWC and AIM are exploring the possibility of setting up a new Fund which would make grants in the meta charity space (including to effective giving initiatives). It would likely have a similar focus to the meta funding circle. This is all very early stage, and there are lots of details to be worked out, but watch this space!