Share where you donated or plan to donate in 2023 and why!
See also: How would your project use extra funding? and Winners in the Forum’s Donation Election (2023)
I encourage you to share regardless of how small or large a donation you’re making, and you shouldn’t feel obliged to share the amount that you’re donating.
You can share as much or as little detail as you want (anything from 1 sentence simply describing where you’re giving, to multiple pages explaining your decision process and key considerations). You can also clarify whether you're interested in feedback or follow-up questions or not.
And if you have thoughts or feedback on someone else’s donation plans, I’d encourage you to share that in a reply to their “answer”, unless the person indicated they don’t want that. (But remember to be respectful and kind while doing this! See also supportive scepticism.)
Why commenting on this post might be useful:
- You might get useful feedback on your donation plan
- Readers might form better donation plans by learning about donation options you're considering, seeing your reasoning, etc.
- Commenting or reading might help you/other people become or stay inspired to give (and to give effectively)
Related:
- It's Giving Season, and "Donation Debate Week" is starting today! We'll be sharing a separate post about that soon.
- Talk about donations earlier and more
- Previous posts of this kind:
This year I decided to focus my donations more, as in the past I used to have a "charity portfolio" of about 20 charities and 3 political parties that I would donate to monthly. This year I've had some cash flow issues due to changes with my work situation, and so I stopped the monthly donations and switched back to an annual set of donations once I worked out what I can afford. I normally try to donate 12.5% of my income annually averaged over time.
This year's charitable donations went to: The Against Malaria Foundation, GiveDirectly, Rethink Priorities, and AI Governance & Safety Canada. I also donated again to some political parties, but I don't count those as charity so much as political activism, so I won't mention them further.
AMF has been my go to as the charity I donate the most to because of GiveWell's long-running recommendation. When in doubt, I donate to them.
GiveDirectly is my more philosophical choice, as I'm somewhat partial to the argument that people should be able to choose how best to be helped, and cash does this better than anything else. I also like their basic income projects as I worry about AI automation a lot, and I think it has the most room for growth of any option.
Rethink Priorities is well, I'll be honest, a big part of donating to that outfit is that I have an online acquaintanceship with Peter Wildeford (co-CEO of RP) that goes back to the days when he was a young Peter Hurford posting on the Felicifia utilitarianism forum, and I think a team co-led by him will go places and deserves support (he also gave a pretty good argument for donating to RP on the forum and Twitter). I know Peter enough to know that he's an incredibly decent human being, a true gentleman and a scholar, and any org he's chosen to co-run is going to be a force for good in the world. Also, I'm a big fan of the EA Survey as a way to gauge and understand the community.
AIGS Canada is an organization that's closer to home and I think they do good work engaging with the politicians and media up here in Canada, doing a much needed service that is otherwise neglected. They're kinda small, so I figure even a small donation from me will have an outsized impact compared to other options. Full disclosure: I'm in the AIGS Canada Slack and sometimes partake in the interesting discussions there.
The first two would be my primary recommendations to people generally. The latter two I would suggest to people in the EA community specifically.
I go into somewhat more detail about my general charity recommendations and also mention some of the ones I used to donate to but don't anymore here: http://www.josephius.com/recommended-charities/