Disclaimer: This blog post focuses on a new piece of research from Rethink Priorities. I was not involved with the funding or execution of this research, and therefore write this piece merely as a consumer. However, I am the Executive Director of Giving Green and a board member of Rethink Priorities, and acknowledge that these affiliations may bias my...
I am writing up two charity ideas I’ve wanted to investigate, but haven’t been able to, in the hopes someone will investigate them further. If you end up investigating either, I'd be most interested to see what conclusions you come to!
Vulture preservation as a global health intervention
Since the mid 1990's the vulture population in India has been rapidly declining. The reason is due to a few chemicals which are fed to livestock, which is highly poisonous to vultures.
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Summary
1. With new funding potentially entering the effective altruism ecosystem, we wanted to estimate how much more the wild animal welfare (WAW) movement could productively absorb. We asked organizations with a public, dedicated WAW workstream to estimate their own room for more funding (RFMF). Although this does not capture the whole movement, we believe it captures a substantive fraction of it.
2. Summed across the five organizations that took part, the estimates point to...
I’ve been thinking lately about how small frictions in everyday financial systems can quietly add up, especially for people trying to plan donations, budgeting, or even short-term commitments responsibly.
I work in the UAE and use a FAB prepaid card for salary-related expenses. It’s not my primary account, but it’s the card where incoming funds land before I allocate money elsewhere. The issue I keep running into is that checking the actual available balance isn’t always straightforward when I’m away from a branch. In practice, this creates uncertainty around timing, whether funds have cleared, and what’s safe to commit or transfer on a given day.
This might sound minor, but when you’re trying to be deliberate about spending, savings, or regular giving, not having a clear picture of what’s available right now becomes surprisingly disruptive. I’ve noticed it more when traveling or during weeks when visiting a physical branch just isn’t realistic.
For people here who’ve lived or worked in the UAE and managed prepaid or salary cards alongside broader financial planning, what’s been the most reliable way to keep track of balances without relying on in-person visits? I’m interested in approaches that work consistently in real conditions, not just in theory.
I’m asking here because this community tends to think carefully about systems, incentives, and practical constraints, and I suspect others have run into similar low-level issues that don’t show up in high-level discussions but still matter day to day.