EA is no longer funding constrained: announcing 4 initiatives to solve effective giving

In 1972, Peter Singer remarked that humans sometimes spend money on things that are not very morally important, while some big problems remain unsolved. It's 2026, and I make the same diagnosis. Rolex and Berluti are far from bankrupt, while malaria and keel bone fractures in cage-free laying hens are far from eradicated.

However, I am agentic. I have thus assigned myself the role of general manager of the problem of ineffective giving. I have thus decided, in personal capacity, to launch four charities at once to solve this problem. I do not have co-founders, hires, funding, individual skills, or access to Claude Pro. However, I know that these new charities will be so effective in increasing funding for EA causes that I will obtain all of these things in a matter of days.

RAGINN - Resistance Against Giving that is Insufficient or Net Negative

^[1]In 2025, Giving What We Can decided they were going to aim for one million pledgers. 355 days later, they have scarcely gotten 1% of the way there. Clearly, the "good cop" approach in effective giving is not winning. 

Look around. Have you asked your neighbor whether they've read the cost-effectiveness analysis of the local dog shelter before giving them a 10$ donation? The answer would disappoint you. Even in EA, I've heard about people keeping more than 10% of their income for rent and groceries, even though their dollars go further overseas. If we want to make effective giving a norm, it's time to test new approaches.  

Wealthy EAs will be targeted first, for tractability reasons. Expect protests in front of cushy Bay Area condos, with actors mimicking scenes of drowning children, and giving heartfelt speakouts and chants such as:

"In 2019, you have committed to living altruistically, and still refuse to live in a shittier flat in the suburbs, due to purported 'time-money tradeoffs'. Shame on you!"

"Spare a chicken from a cage! Commit to the further pledge!"

Advocacy for Redirection to Meta

^[2][3]Could EA have five times more impact with one simple trick? Obviously, yes. 

Case in point: we know effective giving initiatives and other meta orgs (especially I am founding) act as funding multipliers. And yet, not all EA funding is going to these initiatives, even though they literally multiply funding. What the fudge, EA?!

This is where a new advocacy organization comes in: we will target the largest EA Funders to convince them to redirect every single dollar to meta-charities, using facts and logic. Note that even a 1% chance of convincing CG to make this rational change represents more than $100M of money added to effective charities in expectation.

Universal Offsetter

EAs often commit unethical acts: visiting their families, attending conferences mostly to see friends (instead of booking the maximum amount of 1:1s), or even taking entire weekends off.^[4] 

However no EA is in favor of selfishness... just like no one is in favor of factory farming. To improve the world, we don't need individual blame: we need systemic solutions.

We are building a new offsetting calculator to allow you to see how much you should donate to effective charities depending on the amount of minutes you spent on not maximizing impact. 

But what if you already donated everything, as you should have? No problem! Next time your family wants to have you over for dinner, explain that they have to financially offset the time you're counterfactually not spending on improving the world. If they love you (even though they should be scope-sensitive and love future digital minds), they'll be happy to give $50 to Forethought to get to see you.

Philanthropic Advising for Ants

Now for something more topical. Ants seem to be receiving significant philanthropic advising from EA-aligned orgs and individuals. Such Ants are rare, but each Ant has a lot of resources, so the move makes sense. 

Yet historically, ants have been neglected by the movement. While few ants have as much money as members of technical staff at Anthropic, collectively, ants control an enormous amount of resources. Thus, we are currently planning a fellowship for philanthropic advisors to relocate in rural areas of the DRC, in order to start mingling at honeydew cocktail parties^[5].

For once, I did not consult LLMs while making this post. Thanks to my friends Sa and Jo for helping me shortlist the ideas to cover in the post. They did not, thankfully, offer me feedback, which I am not open to.

1. ^{^}

   The inspiration for the name comes from ICAW's "Resistance Against Greed and Exploitation" tour. Taking a look at their Instagram page might give you an idea of what a real effective giving campaign would look like.

2. ^{^}

   Not the company, that would be too dark for an April Fools' Day post

3. ^{^}

   Also, the author is too lazy to attempt acronyms for other initiatives

^{^}

That's easily 1200 minutes that could be spent on preventing astronomical waste.

^{^}

Sadly, most ants are not vegans, so funders may have to eat small insects at the parties in order to accommodate their culture. Worth it in expectation though.

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