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EdoArad2mo70

What do you think of ACE's recent recommendations?

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OpenBook: New EA Grants Database
61
Rachel Weinberg, Austin
Data (EA Community)Effective altruism fundingSoftware engineeringEffective giving
Frontpage
5h

openbook.fyi is a new website where you can see ~4,000 EA grants from donors including Open Phil, FTX Future Fund, and EA Funds in a single place.

Why?

If you're a donor: OpenBook shows you how much orgs have...

(See More – 274 more words)
7Vaidehi Agarwalla5h
This is so cool, thanks for doing this! Top features for me would be: * multi-criteria search (e.g. I want to see al biosec grants made by Open Philanthropy) * CSV download to analyze the grants * standardize cause areas (possibly the first thing since people might not be aware of this) * consider talking to gwwc is it's possible for people to link their accounts and port giving history from there. You could also consider letting people link and list their donations anonymously. Also, how are the grants currently being added? Is it just feeding from the database that Vipul/Issa made ?
Giving Multiplier Paper
16
James Montavon
Effective giving
Frontpage
4h
This is a linkpost for https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade7987

The Joshua Greene and Lucius Caviola article about their givingmultiplier.org work has just been published. Here's the abstract:

The most effective charities are hundreds of times more impactful than typical charities. However, most donors favor charities with personal/emotional

...
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The EA community does not own its donors' money
608
Nick Whitaker
Criticism of effective altruismCriticism of effective altruism cultureEffective altruism fundingCriticism of effective altruist organizationsEffective Altruism FundsBuilding effective altruismEffective givingCommunity
Frontpage
10d

A number of recent proposals have detailed EA reforms. I have generally been unimpressed with these - they feel highly reactive and too tied to attractive sounding concepts (democratic, transparent, accountable) without well thought through mechanisms. I...

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1Achim7h
"Also - I'm using scare quotes here because I am very confused who these proposals mean when they say EA community. Is it a matter of having read certain books, or attending EAGs, hanging around for a certain amount of time, working at an org, donating a set amount of money, or being in the right Slacks?" It is of course a relevant question who this community is supposed to consist of, but at the same time, this question could be asked whenever someone refers to the community as a collective agent doing something, having a certain opinion, benefitting from something etc. For example, you write "They may be interested in community input for their funding, via regranting for example, or invest in the Community". If you can't define the community, you cannot clearly say that someone invested in it. You later speak of "managing the relationship between the community and its most generous funder", but it seems hard to say how this relationship is currently managed if the community is so hard to define.
Have the reputations of effective giving orgs like GiveWell taken a hit due to the FTX crisis?
25
BrownHairedEevee, Karolis Ramanauskas
GiveWellEffective altruism messagingFTX collapseGiving GreenAnimal Charity EvaluatorsEffective altruism in the mediaCommunityBuilding effective altruismEffective giving
Frontpage
18h

The idea of effective altruism has taken a lot of negative publicity recently due to its association with FTX. But has this backlash extended to orgs like GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators, and Giving Green that aren't as closely associated with FTX?

45Answer by Karolis Ramanauskas12h
I've been tracking how many new GWWC pledges are taken each month using this Colab for a while: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1BR8nrIAVy7BdD7DpmMZ9CdcQZzBoHfUm?usp=sharing [https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1BR8nrIAVy7BdD7DpmMZ9CdcQZzBoHfUm?usp=sharing] Using this single data point, the picture is mixed I'd say, especially once you consider that What We Owe The Future came out in August 2022 and recession fears started at a similar time. There is also some seasonality of pledging around January, so I did year over year % change for 2021-22: Not including January 2023 yet, as it's not over and it also takes some time for people to show up on the list after they take the pledge. There is a longer term plot in the Colab, but it's too ugly to post here and I'm too lazy to fix it. If someone could make a nicer looking bar chart, I would appreciate it.
Overview of effective giving organisations
78
SjirH
FundraisingCharity evaluationCollections and resourcesData (EA Community)Effective givingBuilding effective altruism
Frontpage
3d

I've been keeping an overview of the public effective giving ecosystem that I thought would be worth sharing in its own post (I've previously referred to it here). I've noticed people often aren't aware of many of...

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1Joel Tan (CEARCH)1d
Hi Sjir - will definitely be looking to put out funding opportunities for specific charities (whether a CE incubatee of one of our ideas, if that happens, or other existing organizations working in areas our research identified as impactful). In terms of timeline, probably 2H/2023 or else early next year - not too certain on this!
2SjirH6h
Ok, sounds good, I've added you to the list; looking forward to what CEARCH will come up with!
Is EA’s capital invested as well as top endowments?
8
Arden P. B. Wiese
InvestingEffective altruism fundingBuilding effective altruismEffective giving
Frontpage
21h

My sibling deserves full credit for thinking of and writing this post but he doesn't frequent the EA Forum so asked me to post it.

How well-managed are pools of capital used for EA grantmaking? Are they compounding...

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1adam galas4h
I should not the goal is to donate 5% of the portfolio each year. That will let me donate far more than my entire annual income which is currently over $500,000 per year. I love Will McCaskill's "earn to give" strategy but I tweak it to "earn to invest and give." In an upcoming article on Seeking Alpha I'll show how donating 50% of your income is great. But donating 25% of your income to the most effective charities and investing 25% into a low risk ETF based portfolio can result in up to 100x more donations than just donations alone. Donate today, donate even more tomorrow, and donate staggering amounts over your life time. And then turn your portfolio into a perpetual charitable trust in your will. That ensures the effective altruism never stops. For an example of how powerful this can be consider the example of Ben Franklin. Franklin left $1,000 in his will to Philadelphia and Boston with one important proviso. The money had to be invested and half donated to charity after 100 years. Then the other half after 200 years. The second donation to each city, was $13 million each. From $2000 over $26 million donated to charity. That is the power of patient philanthropy. Help those most in need today. Help tens of thousands over your life time. And help millions or billions over centuries. Give thousands and you can help lots of people. Give millions and you can help millions. Give billions and you can change the world. But give trillions over centuries and millennia and you can change everything.
3Answer by Agustín Covarrubias20h
Epistemic status: Speculative at best. I think the general distribution of assets is probably right, but I'm far from a financial expert, so I might not have the best understanding of the portfolios themselves. tl;dr: The biggest pool is Dustin & Cari's portfolio, which probably has comparable performance. Beyond that, most of the money in EA gets spent rapidly, with few long-term assets that can be invested. Based on my very rough and messy reconstruction of committed resources, organization assets and money flows based on public information, the answer is probably yes. Why? If we include committed assets, then the biggest pool of capital used for EA grantmaking is Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna's portfolio, which amounts to over $13bn [https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/dustin-a-moskovitz/#xj4y7vzkg] in what I believe are largely risky, long-run, diversified investments.[1] [#fneodvhevgv2w]My best guess is that these investments probably compound (on the long term) to a rate similar to university endowments, which also tend to have a risky profile optimized for long-run stocks [https://faculty.washington.edu/gilbertt/docs/University%20endowments%20-%20White%20Paper%20-%20Gilbert%20Hrdlicka%20-%2012%20November%202017.pdf] . Now, a substantial part of Dustin and Cari's money has already been transferred to EA organizations, so the next step in the chain would be to check Good Venture's assets (which are controlled by Open Philanthropy). These probably amount to something like $4bn [https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461008520] based on public filings from 2020.[2] [#fn9cshva9vpsa]Given Good Venture's money flows, it would seem reasonable to expect a good part of this to be invested, but probably not for the long run. The next stop in this train involve the assets being held by (arguably) the biggest foundation in EA, Effective Ventures (the foundation behind CEA, 80k, EA Funds, GWWC and much, much more [https://ev.org/]). EV
Call me, maybe? Hotlines and Global Catastrophic Risk [Founders Pledge]
80
christian.r
Nuclear warfareNuclear securityFounders PledgeGlobal catastrophic riskExistential riskEffective giving
Frontpage
4d
This is a linkpost for https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U2sVOLYhf7uejXd08HDylu3p0smd0ES7ru0xhcUaoJI/edit#heading=h.lpgvtmkb0c6u

This post summarizes a Founders Pledge shallow investigation on direct communications links (DCLs or "hotlines") between states as global catastrophic risks interventions. As a shallow investigation, it is a rough attempt at understanding an issue, and is...

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4christian.r4d
Hi ParetoPrinciple! I appreciate your engaging with the document :) I quote Schelling throughout (and think he actually makes some of the points you hint at more clearly in The Strategy of Conflict — eg the quote in footnote 61 here). You’re definitely right that no hotlines discussion would be complete without this!
7NickLaing4d
Yes this title...
5christian.r4d
Thanks, will! Really appreciate this comment :) Credit for the title actually goes to my colleagues on the FP research team (I believe it was Tom or Johannes who first came up with it).
How can I start off my career as an EA aligned Venture Capitalist ?
17
Nayanika
InvestingGrantmakingFundraisingEntrepreneurshipEffective giving
Frontpage
2d

I have an undergraduate degree in Finance and Marketing. I wish to find new projects tackling top problems and redirect investments towards these projects/ventures. My innate interest in Fundraising is what draws me towards working for a...

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4Jason1d
Let's not downvote posts from new users asking questions in good faith below +1 karma without a really good reason. I don't see such a reason here.
14Answer by Davidmanheim1d
Without knowing more about your resume and background, I strongly suspect that the first priority, for your initial job, is going to be to get experience in a top/impressive firm, and not focus on finding an EA-aligned job until you have a couple years of experience.
Moving money from fashion week to effective causes
34
Vincent van der Holst
Building effective altruismEffective giving
Frontpage
3d

I apologize in advance for asking the EA forum to help us activate a campaign, but because I believe this to be an effective, new and interesting way to build the community and get more incremental money...

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Introducing "Inspire Altruism": Empowering the Next Generation of Effective Altruists
5
Harrison Kim
Effective altruism outreach in schoolsEffective altruism educationOrganization updatesBuilding effective altruismEffective giving
Frontpage
1d

TL;DR Inspire Altruism is a nonprofit that empowers the next generation of effective altruists through workshops at private high schools. Students participate in a Giving Exercise where they are given money to keep or donate to a...

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7Jeff A1d
Hey Harrison, very interesting project you are working on and I hope it becomes a success! I love the idea of getting high schoolers to think more altruistically! I understand your stated explanation for only selecting private high schools, but have you thought of later expanding to charter or magnet high schools? From EA forums and in-person meetups, I fear EA is already, and further going into, a kind of echo chamber due to it's demographic of wealthy, elite, intellectual circles. Your project can be a great way to expand EA’s demographic. The Harvard economist Roland Fryer has done similar research and projects, but instead money was used to successfully incentivize underrepresented students to academically succeed in charter and public schools. I would suggest checking out his work. Best of luck on your project!
GWWC Pledge History
45
Jeff Kaufman
Giving What We CanDonation pledgeHistory of effective altruismEffective givingCommunityBuilding effective altruism
Frontpage
4d

Giving What We Can members have pledged to donate at least 10% of what they earn to help others as best they can, but this is broader than it was originally. The pledge was specific to global poverty, and only...

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3NickLaing2d
Love it nice one Xavier! I completely agree with you, and I don't see the pledge as even having to have a direct relationship to EA. I think anyone could legitimately sign the pledge outside of any direct EA framework, giving money to whatever was in your opinion was an effective organsation.
Evaluating StrongMinds: how strong is the evidence?
124
JoelMcGuire
StrongMindsHappier Lives InstituteCost-effectiveness analysisMental healthPsychotherapyGlobal health and developmentEffective giving
Frontpage
10d

A recent post by Simon_M argued that StrongMinds should not be a top recommended charity (yet), and many people seemed to agree. While I think Simon raised several useful points regarding StrongMinds, he didn't engage with the cost-effectiveness analysis of...

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10Jason2d
I have no right to ask for this, but for comment sections that really get into the weeds technically (and on issues one would expect to be action-relevant for other members of the community), it would be great to have a fairly short, neutral, accessible writeup once the conversation has died down. I suspect there are a number of readers whose statistical background and abilities are not significantly better than mine (I have some graduate research training in sociology, but it was nearly half a lifetime ago). On the other hand, it's not reasonable to ask commenters to write their technically-oriented comments in a way that is accessible to people like me. At present, I think those of us with less technical sophistication are left with something like "There are issues with HLI's methodology, but the extent to which those issues materially affect the bottom line is a subject of disagreement." Maybe that's all that could be said neutrally anyway, and people like me just have to read the comments and draw what conclusions we can?
2JoelMcGuire2d
Fair point! I'll try to to summarize things from my perspective once things have settled a bit more.
5ryancbriggs2d
That's so reasonable. I think that we can all agree that the analysis was done in an atypical way (perhaps for good reason), that it was not as rigorous as many people expected, and that it had a series of omissions or made atypical analytical moves that (perhaps inadvertently) made SM look better than it will look once that stuff is addressed. I don't think anyone can speak yet to the magnitude of the adjustment when the analysis is done better or in a standard way. But I'd welcome especially Joel's response to this question. It's a critical question and it's worth hearing his take.
Doing EA Better: grant-makers should consider grant app peer review along the public-sector model
33
ben.smith
GrantmakingCommunity epistemic healthEffective altruism fundingScience and technology studiesScientific progressDoing EA BetterBuilding effective altruismCommunityEffective giving
Frontpage
4d

Epistemic status: speculative

This is a response to recent posts including Doing EA Better and The EA community does not own its donors' money. In order to make better funding decisions, some EAs have called for democratizing EA's funding systems....

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3Davidmanheim4d
I agree that this is tricky to do, because the processes aren't so well publicly documented. (Not that they should be - funders providing information about their processes make them more gameable, as most government funding is!) I do think that you could have asked more people with knowledge of the process to review the post, and also think that the Survival and Flourishing Fund documents what they do pretty clearly, including both their writeup, and at least one forum post by a reviewer documenting it pretty extensively.
1ben.smith4d
At a pinch, I would say review might be more worthwhile for topics where the work builds on a well-developed but pre-existing body of research. So, funding a graduate to take time to learn about AI Safety full-time as a bridge to developing a project probably wouldn't benefit from a review, but an application to develop a very specific project based on a specific idea probably would. I don't have a sense on how often five-to-low-six-figure grants involve very specific ideas. If you told me they usually don't, I would definitely update against thinking a peer review would be useful in those circumstances.
3Jason4d
I have no idea, to be honest. My belief that smaller grants might not be the best trial run for cost-effectiveness is based more on assumptions that (1) highly qualified reviewers might not think reviewing grants in that range is an effective use of their time; and (2) very quick reviews are likely to identify only clearly erroneous exercises of grantmaking discretion. Either assumption could be wrong! But I think at that grant size, the cost-effectiveness profile might be more favorable for a system of peer review under specified circumstances rather than as a automatic practice. Knowing that they were only being asked when there was a greater chance their assistance might be outcome-determinative might help with attracting quality reviewers too.
StrongMinds should not be a top-rated charity (yet)
330
Simon_M
Criticism of effective altruist organizationsStrongMindsCharity evaluationMental healthGlobal health and developmentEffective givingCause prioritization
Curated
1mo
This is a linkpost for https://simonm.substack.com/p/strongminds-should-not-be-a-top-rated

GWWC lists StrongMinds as a “top-rated” charity. Their reason for doing so is because Founders Pledge has determined they are cost-effective in their report into mental health.

I could say here, “and that report was written in 2019...

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22JoelMcGuire10d
I’m belatedly making an overall comment about this post. I think this was a valuable contribution to the discussion around charity evaluation. We agree that StrongMinds’ figures about their effect on depression are overly optimistic. We erred by not pointing this out in our previous work and not pushing StrongMinds to cite more sensible figures. We have raised this issue with StrongMinds and asked them to clarify which claims are supported by causal evidence. There are some other issues that Simon raises, like social desirability bias, that I think are potential concerns. The literature we reviewed in our StrongMinds CEA (page 26 [https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/report/strongminds-cost-effectiveness-analysis/] ) doesn’t suggest it’s a large issue, but I only found one study that directly addresses this in a low-income country (Haushofer et al., 2020 [https://www.nber.org/papers/w28106]), so the evidence appears very limited here (but let me know if I’m wrong). I wouldn’t be surprised if more work changed my mind on the extent of this bias. However, I would be very surprised if this alone changed the conclusion of our analysis. As is typically the case, more research is needed. Having said that, I have a few issues with the post and see it as more of a conversation starter than the end of the conversation. I respond to a series of quotes from the original post below. If there's confusion about our methodology, that’s fair, and I’ve tried to be helpful in that regard. Regarding our relationship with StrongMinds, we’re completely independent. This is false. Aswe’ve explained before [https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uY5SwjHTXgTaWC85f/don-t-just-give-well-give-wellbys-hli-s-2022-charity?commentId=e2PyZq2hFqzLEdgdp] , our evaluation of StrongMinds is primarily based on a meta-analysis of psychological interventions in LMICs, which is a distinction between our work and Founders Pledge that means that many of the problems mentioned apply less to our work
America’s 100 Charities receiving most donations
28
Pat Myron
Donation choiceStatisticsEffective giving
Frontpage
6d
This is a linkpost for https://www.forbes.com/lists/top-charities/

Informative to know where donations are currently going. Most common categories:
31 Domestic Needs
26 International Needs
12 Health
10 Medical

7Lizka6d
I didn't have much time but was interested in what the "International Needs" charities on the list actually do (thanks for sharing this link!), so I asked ChatGPT to describe the top 10 "International Needs" charities from the list (of 26 total in the category). I'm pasting the result below in case anyone is interested. (Also according to ChatGPT, these can be grouped into the following categories: humanitarian aid and disaster relief (3), housing/infrastructure (1), poverty/economic development (3), health and medicine (2), donated goods and materials (1).) The "health" charities seem to mostly be charities that work on eradicating certain diseases/conditions or supporting people with them (like the American Cancer Society). "Medical" includes St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Mayo Clinic, and other hospitals and institutes. "Domestic Needs" includes Feeding America, United Way Worldwide, Salvation Army, etc. Other categories include "Youth" — e.g. YMCA of the USA, Environment/Animal — e.g. Nature Conservancy, "Education." 10/26 "international needs" charities (described by ChatGPT): Important disclaimer: I haven't checked these descriptions. 1. Direct Relief is a humanitarian aid organization that provides medical assistance to people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest. 2. Good 360 is a nonprofit organization that helps other nonprofits and schools by providing them with donated goods and materials. 3. Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit organization that builds and repairs homes for people in need. 4. AmeriCares is a disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization that provides medical assistance and aid to people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest. 5. Compassion International is a Christian organization that provides assistance to children living in poverty, including education and healthcare support. 6. World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization that h
25Jason6d
Thanks for sharing! As for the dozen or so food banks on the list, it's probably worth noting that the bulk of their incoming donations are food products -- e.g., meat and other stuff that is about to expire. Other organizations aren't set up to do anything with those particular donations. So those entries should not be taken at face value as evidence of general popularity among donors.

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GraceAdams
Organizer
Melbourne VIC, Australia

Head of Marketing at Giving What We Can

grace.adams @ givingwhatwecan.org

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MichaelA
Senior Research Manager @ Rethink Priorities; also guest fund manager @ the EA Infrastructure Fund
Oxford, UK

I’m Michael Aird, a Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities and guest fund manager at the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund. Opinions expressed are my own. See here for Rethink Priorities' job openings or expression of interest forms, here for a list of EA-aligned funding sources you could apply to,  and here for my top recommended resources for people interested in EA/longtermist research careers. You can give me anonymous feedback here.

With Rethink, I'm mostly focused on co-leading our AI Governance & Strategy team. I also do some nuclear risk research, give input on Rethink's Generalist Longtermism team's work, and do random other stuff.

Previously, I did a range of longtermism-y and research-y things as a Research Scholar at the Future of Humanity Institute, a Summer Research Fellow at the Center on Long-Term Risk, and a Researcher/Writer for Convergence Analysis. 

I also post to LessWrong sometimes.

If you think you or I could benefit from us talking, feel free to message me! You might also want to check out my post "Interested in EA/longtermist research careers? Here are my top recommended resources".

Nathan Young
Sales/Product Management @ Goodheart Labs (Software Development)
London, UK

Create prediction markets and forecasting questions on AI risk and biorisk. I have been awarded an FTX Future Fund grant and I work part-time at a prediction market.

Use my connections on Twitter to raise the profile of these predictions and increase the chance that decision-makers discuss these issues.

I am uncertain about how to run an org for my FTXFF grant and whether prediction markets will be a good indicator in practice.

How I can help others

Connecting them to other EAs.

Writing forecasting questions on metaculus.

Talking to them about forecasting.

Lizka
Content Specialist @ Centre for Effective Altruism

I run the non-engineering side of the EA Forum (this platform), run the EA Newsletter, and work on some other content-related tasks at CEA. Please feel free to reach out! You can email me. [More about my job.]

Some of my favorite of my own posts:

I finished my undergraduate studies with a double major in mathematics and comparative literature in 2021. I was a research fellow at Rethink Priorities in the summer of 2021 and was then hired by the Events Team at CEA. I've since switched to the Online Team. In the past, I've also done some (math) research and worked at Canada/USA Mathcamp.

Some links I think people should see more frequently:

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Julia_Wise
Boston, MA, USA

I'm a contact person for the effective altruism community: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hYh6jKBsKXH8mWwtc/a-contact-person-for-the-ea-community

Please feel free to contact me at julia.wise@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.

I work at CEA as a community liaison, trying to make the EA community stronger and more welcoming. I also serve on the board of GiveWell.

Besides effective altruism, I'm interested in folk dance and trying to keep up with my three children.

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MichaelStJules
Associate researcher, animal welfare @ Rethink Priorities

Associate researcher in animal welfare at Rethink Priorities. Writing on behalf of myself only.

Also interested in global priorities research and reducing s-risks.

My background is mostly in pure math, computer science and deep learning, but also some in statistics/econometrics and agricultural economics.

I'm a suffering-focused moral antirealist.

My shortform.

Ben_West
Panama City, Panama

Head of Online (EA Forum, effectivealtruism.org, Virtual Programs) at CEA. Non-EA interests include chess and TikTok (@benthamite). We are probably hiring: https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/careers

Vaidehi Agarwalla
Product Manager @ Momentum
Berkeley, CA, USA

I currenty work on Product at Momentum. 

I'm a community builder based in the Bay. I previously worked in consulting, recruiting and marketing and have a BA in Sociology and focused on social movement theory and structural functionalism. I've written a little bit about my journey to EA.

/'vɛðehi/ or VEH-they-hee

Some posts I've written and particuarly like: 

How I can help others

I can give feedback on movement building & meta EA project plans and career advising

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J
Jason

I am an attorney in a public-sector position not associated with EA, although I cannot provide legal advice to anyone. My involvement with EA so far has been mostly limited so far to writing checks to GiveWell and other effective charities in the Global Health space, as well as some independent reading. I have occasionally read the forum and was looking for ideas for year-end giving when the whole FTX business exploded . . . 

How I can help others

As someone who isn't deep in EA culture (at least at the time of writing), I may be able to offer a perspective on how the broader group of people with sympathies toward EA ideas might react to certain things. I'll probably make some errors that would be obvious to other people, but sometimes a fresh set of eyes can help bring a different perspective.

LF
Luke Freeman
Forest Lodge NSW 2037, Australia

Executive director at Giving What We Can and board member Effective Altruism Australia

B
BrownHairedEevee
Machine Learning Engineer @ PayPal
New York, NY, USA

I'm a machine learning engineer on a team at PayPal that develops algorithms for personalized donation recommendations (among other things). Before this, I studied computer science at Cornell University. I also manage the Effective Public Interest Computing Slack (join here).

Obligatory disclaimer: My content on the Forum represents my opinions alone and not those of PayPal.

I also offer copyediting and formatting services to members of the EA community for $15-35 per page, depending on the client's ability to pay. DM me for details.

I'm also interested in effective altruism and longtermism broadly. The topics I'm interested in change over time; they include existential risks, climate change, wild animal welfare, alternative proteins, and longtermist global development.

A comment I've written about my EA origin story

Pronouns: she/her, ella, 她, 彼女

Links:

"It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If we take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations will help you become whole." —Uncle Iroh

MaxDalton
Executive Director @ Centre for Effective Altruism
Oxford, UK

I lead the Centre for Effective Altruism, an organization that is trying to support the EA community in order to create a radically better world. I set our overall strategy, hire people to further in our work, and manage and empower the leadership team.

I used to be a moderator here, and helped to launch the new version of the Forum in 2018. Before that I studied economics, did some mediocre global priorities research, and helped to set up an early version of EA Funds.

Feel free to reach out if you think I might be able to help you. Follow the links to give (anonymous) feedback to me or CEA.

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  • I might be able to help you talk through issues you're facing relating to management, and I can point you towards some good resources if you're new to management.
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DavidNash
Community Director @ Effective Altruism UK

Community Organiser for EA UK- https://www.effectivealtruism.uk

Monthly Overload of EA - https://moea.substack.com/

How I can help others

If you're thinking about being a community organiser or are currently organising an EA related group then I'd be happy to share ideas on strategy and community building.

I've been an organiser with EA UK since 2015, working part time since 2017 and full time since 2019. I've also had conversations with people setting up groups around the world and also career, cause, interest and workplace related groups.

I have also had quite a few career 1-1s with people in the UK and could be a good sounding board if you had career/project questions.

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James Ozden

Currently doing social movement and protest-related research at Social Change Lab, an EA-aligned research organisation I've recently started.

Previously, I completed the 2021 Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. Before that, I was the Director & Strategy lead at Animal Rebellion + in the Strategy team at Extinction Rebellion UK, working on movement building for animal advocacy and climate change.

My blog (often EA related content)

Feel free to reach out on james.ozden [at] hotmail.com or see a bit more about me here

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david_reinstein
Monson, MA, USA

davidreinstein.org

I am a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities (https://www.rethinkpriorities.org/our-team), previously an Economics lecturer/professor for 15 years

I'm working to impact EA fundraising and marketing; see https://bit.ly/eamtt

And projects bridging EA, academia, and open science (esp. the 'Unjournal') ... see bit.ly/eaprojects

My previous and ongoing research focuses on determinants and motivators of charitable giving (propensity, amounts, and 'to which cause?'), and drivers of/barriers to effective giving, as well as the impact of pro-social behavior and social preferences on market contexts.

Podcasts: "Found in the Struce" https://anchor.fm/david-reinstein

and the EA Forum podcast: https://anchor.fm/ea-forum-podcast (co-founder, regular reader)

Twitter: @givingtools

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WilliamKiely
Austin, TX, USA



You can send me a message anonymously here: https://www.admonymous.co/will

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Lorenzo Buonanno
Software Developer
20025 Legnano, Metropolitan City of Milan, Italy

Hi!

Currently (Oct 2022) mostly doing translations and community building in Italy, and some web development consulting part-time.

I'm also a forum mod, which, shamelessly stealing from Edo, "mostly means that I care about this forum and about you! So let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Please have a very low bar for reaching out!

Used to be a Software Developer donating most of my income, and won the 2022 donor lottery, happy to chat about that as well

finm
Research Scholar @ Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford, UK

Head of Reseach @ Longview Media

Also Research scholar @ FHI and assistant to Toby Ord. Philosophy student before that.

I do a podcast about EA called Hear This Idea.

www.finmoorhouse.com/writing

www.hearthisidea.com

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mic
Summer 2022 Research Intern @ Center for Human-Compatible AI
Berkeley, CA, USA

Hello, I'm Michael! I first learned about effective altruism from reading 80,000 Hours back in middle school, sometime after my brother (an avid reader of fanfiction) recommended to me Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I co-founded EA at Georgia Tech in April 2021 and was a Summer 2022 research intern at the Center for Human-Compatible AI.

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Jack Lewars
Executive Director @ One for the World
Müllerstraße 138D, 13353 Berlin, Germany

Executive Director at One for the World; chair of trustees at High Impact Athletes.

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Emrik
@ Chaotic Good
Norway

“In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.”

Michael Townsend
Researcher @ Giving What We Can
Seaforth NSW 2092, Australia

Researcher at Giving What We Can.

Rockwell
Director @ EA NYC
  • Full-time Director for EA NYC
  • Part-time advisor to farmed animal-focused philanthropists
  • Feel free to contact me by email for any questions or collaboration ideas or book a time in my Calendly.
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Vasco Grilo
Lisbon, Portugal
bruce

Doctor from NZ, now doing Global Health & Development Research @ Rethink Priorities, but interested and curious about most EA topics.

Outside of RP work, I spend some time doing independent "grand futures"/ GPR research (Anders Sandberg/BERI) and very sporadic grantmaking (EAIF). Also looking to re-engage with UN processes for OCA/Summit of the Future.

Feel free to reach out if you think there's anything I can do to help you or your work, or if you have any Qs about Rethink Priorities! If you're a medical student / junior doctor reconsidering your clinical future, or if you're quite new to EA / feel uncertain about how you fit in the EA space, have an especially low bar for reaching out.

Outside of EA, I do a bit of end of life care research and climate change advocacy, and outside of work I enjoy some casual basketball, board games and good indie films. (Very) washed up classical violinist and oly-lifter.

All comments in personal capacity unless otherwise stated.

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Aaron Bergman
Bethesda, MD, USA

I graduated from Georgetown University in December, 2021 with degrees in economics, mathematics and a philosophy minor. There, I founded and helped to lead Georgetown Effective Altruism. Over the last few years recent years, I've interned at the Department of the Interior, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Nonlinear, a newish longtermist EA org.

I'm now doing research thanks to an EA funds grant, trying to answer hard, important EA-relevant questions. My first big project (in addition to everything listed here) was helping to generate this team Red Teaming post.

Blog: aaronbergman.net

How I can help others
  • Open to research/writing collaboration :)
  • Would be excited to work on impactful data science/analysis/visualization projects
  • Can help with writing and/or editing
  • Discuss topics I might have some knowledge of
    • like: math, economics, philosophy (esp. philosophy of mind and ethics), psychopharmacology (hobby interest), helping to run a university EA group, data science, interning at government agencies
Markus Amalthea Magnuson
Founder @ Altruistic Agency
Brussels, Belgium
How I can help others

I'm an experienced software engineer with a focus on full-stack web development and have worked with websites for 15+ years. Anyone who needs anything related to that are welcome to chat, and it's also what my organisation Altruistic Agency offers for free.

Clifford
Product Manager @ Centre for Effective Altruism
London, UK

I'm (Ben) Clifford. I work as a Product Manager for the Centre for Effective Altruism.

I first got involved in EA in 2011 when I started the GWWC chapter at the University of Warwick. Since I worked for GWWC, was a software developer, an early employee at Founders Pledge and started a workplace giving startup.

How I can help others

I can likely connect you to people or talk about my experience community building and pitching EA at Founders Pledge, running a very early stage employee giving startup at Tyve and doing Product Management.

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Austin
Cofounder @ Manifold Markets
San Francisco, CA, USA

Hey there~ I'm Austin, currently building https://manifold.markets. Always happy to meet people; reach out at akrolsmir@gmail.com, or find a time on https://calendly.com/austinchen/manifold !

JulianHazell

Broadly interested in AI governance (research, policy, and strategy), longtermist research, and EA strategy/prioritisation.

My blog: https://www.hazell.substack.com

MSc student in Social Science of the Internet @ University of Oxford

Previous: Content & Research Associate @ Giving What We Can

Current: Summer Research Fellow @ GovAI

julian[dot]hazell[at]mansfield.ox.ac.uk

Jeroen Willems
Content creator / YouTuber @ A Happier World

My name is pronounced somewhat like 'yuh-roon'.

he/him

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Devon Fritz
10967 Berlin, Germany

Co-Founder of High Impact Professionals. We enable working professionals to maximize their positive impact by supporting them in donating their time, skills and resources effectively.

Ex-CTO and MD of Germany for Founders Pledge. Big on promoting Effective Giving.

Originally from New York, living in Berlin.

MHR
Aerospace Engineer
Silver Spring, MD, USA

Aerospace engineer by day, nit-picky red teamer by night. Most interested in farmed animal welfare and the nitty-gritty details of global health and development work. Co-winner of the 2022 GiveWell Change Our Minds contest. 

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PeterMcCluskey

I'm a stock market speculator who has been involved in transhumanist and related communities for a long time. See my website at http://bayesianinvestor.com.

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TylerMaule
Trader
Bethnal Green, London, UK

. 

How I can help others

Happy to chat about my experience in quant trading, living in Chicago/London

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Henry Howard
Brunswick East VIC 3057, Australia

I'm a doctor in Australia interested in doing the most good that I can.

Henryach.com/workathon

Proponent of Earning to Give. Skeptical of longtermism.

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Ivy_Mazzola
Mariposa Dr, Austin, TX, USA
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aaronhamlin

I'm the executive director of The Center for Election Science (www.electionscience.org). We study and advance better voting methods. I also started Male Contraceptive Initiative but am no longer there. I first learned about EA in 2016 and went to my first EA event in 2017. My formal education is in the social sciences and law. You can find my writing and resources at www.aaronhamlin.com. Also at: https://twitter.com/aaronfhamlin, https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronhamlin

Dewi
Executive Director @ BlueDot Impact
Cambridge, UK
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Imma

I work as Software Tester and donate a part of my income.

I got into EA in 2012.

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seanrson

"Do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world." - Thích Nhất Hạnh

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Mo Putera

FTX Future Fund exploratory grantee based in Kuala Lumpur, spending a year trying to find an EA-related job. Previously I spent 6 years doing data analytics, business intelligence and knowledge + project management in various industries (airlines, ecommerce) and departments (commercial, marketing), after majoring in physics at UCLA. 

I've been at the periphery of EA for a long time; my introduction to it in 2014 was via the dead children as unit of currency essay, I started donating shortly thereafter, and I've been "soft-selling" basic EA ideas for years. But I only started actively participating in the community in 2021, when I joined EA Malaysia. Given my career background it perhaps makes sense that my interests center around improving assessment of altruistic impact, and improving decision-making based on that: estimation of value, cost-effectiveness analysis, local priorities research, etc. 

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pmelchor
Co-founder and president @ Ayuda Efectiva
Madrid, Spain

Pablo Melchor, co-founder and president at Ayuda Efectiva. Co-founded EA Spain.

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Patrick

Name: Patrick Brinich-Langlois

Website: https://www.patbl.com

Pronouns: he/she/they

Ice-cream flavor: raspberry sorbet

Toothpaste: Colgate (original)

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mjamer

My name is Megan Jamer. I live in Canada, and I like to spend time outdoors. I work at Rethink Charity (mainly on RC Forward and EA Giving Tuesday) and at ALLFED. My work is primarily on communications projects, but I also do a bit of operations work.

Angelina Li
@ Centre for Effective Altruism
Berkeley, CA, USA
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Renan Araujo
Researcher @ Rethink Priorities

I'm Renan Araujo, a Researcher at Rethink Priorities.

I work in the General Longtermism team, where my primary focus involves making sense of how to prioritize among megaprojects and how to operationalize them. Currently (Nov 22), my work leads me to think about scalable movement building in LMIC, which I've been doing with a focus on Brazil and Latin America through Condor Camp.

Previously, I worked as a predoctoral research fellow at the Legal Priorities Project. There, I look into how constitutions protect future generations, what research should be done in space governance, and how extortion law may help reduce s-risks.

In a previous life, I considered following an academic career in criminology, did a master's in criminal justice policy at LSE, led a criminal justice reform volunteer group in Brazil, and earned a law degree.

You can reach out to me through my personal page and my LinkedIn. I'm happy to have 1-1s about various subjects, from career advice to space governance :)

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Max Ghenis

I'm the co-founder and CEO of PolicyEngine, a tech nonprofit that computes the impacts of public policy (policyengine.org). I'm also the founder and president of the UBI Center, a think tank researching universal basic income policies (ubicenter.org).

I first got into EA in 2012: I worked at Google at the time, and Google.org made a grant to GiveDirectly. I've since taken the GWWC pledge and focused my giving on GiveDirectly and GiveWell. I was active in Google's EA group and also MIT's when I went there for grad school in 2020.

I'm also the founder of Ventura County YIMBY, and a volunteer California state coordinator for Citizens' Climate Lobby, a grassroots organization advocating for a national carbon fee-and-dividend policy.

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aaron_mai

I'm a third-year undergrad in cognitive science; currently testing out research in philosophy (social epistemology) and studying deep learning. 

Feel free to reach out via dm!

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JamesHu
Associate Researcher @ Rethink Priorities
London, UK
Rahela
IT Manager @ Anima International

Hi, call me Rahela. I'm working in Anima International, as IT manager. In free time I write my personal blog about animals, effective helping, ethics and life on the countryside. I also host a podcast about similar topics. You can find me here https://calkiemnudnezycie.pl/

How I can help others

Reach out to me if you have questions about our work in IT in Anima International, sometimes we can help and give ready solutions. 

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Andy_Schultz

Andy is a software engineer donating to long term future and EA meta causes, and investing to give later.

Ryan Fugate
Program Manager @ Centre for Effective Altruism

I am the program manager for the CEA Online team (the group that runs this Forum), which means I do a bit of everything - operations, analysis, support, and anything else that needs doing.  This is my first role in an EA org, and I am new(ish) to EA, so I am keen to meet as many people as I can!  Email me or message me through the Forum, I'll be happy to connect.

I am joining the CEA team from a fintech where I held roles in product management, corporate strategy, and operations, and I spent some obligatory time as a strategy consultant before that.  I also graduated with a degree in cognitive neuroscience which I've never been able to put to practical use but still find fascinating.

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nickfitz
founder/ceo @ Momentum
San Francisco, CA, USA

Founder & CEO at Momentum

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Rob Gledhill
CBG Program manager @ CEA
Santiago, Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile
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Oscar Howie
Project Manager (Exec Office) @ CEA
Will Howard
Software Engineer @ Centre for Effective Altruism
London, UK

I'm a developer on the EA Forum (the website you are currently on). You can contact me about forum stuff at will.howard@centreforeffectivealtruism.org or about anything else at w.howard256@gmail.com

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JoanMM
@ Ayuda Efectiva
Hamburg, Germany
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Jmd
Leiden, Netherlands
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Fabio Kuhn
Davos, Switzerland

Software Engineer working on Giving What We Can, EA Funds & GivingMultiplier.org

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phgubbins
Operations Assistant @ AE Studio

Recent graduate (English and Philosophy), Vanderbilt University group organizer and intro/in-depth fellowship facilitator. Working part-time for One for the World and Giving What We Can, and contract work for CEA for EAGxBerkeley. Aspiring to learn more about a lot, including myself. Currently exploring ops/writing. Working at AE.studio as an ops asst and exploring how AE and EA can best collaborate. Fan of Existentialism and subsequent writings, like writing, reading fiction, cooking, drawing, and improv.

How I can help others

Anecdata about EA at universities, community building, facilitation. Can provide junior and uncertain feedback on theories of change/early career stuff.

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greg.gianopoulos
Founder and Project Lead @ GWWC Charity Elections program

Graduate student in school psychology

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Felix_Werdermann
Berlin, Deutschland

Felix works as a business consultant (earn to give) and lives in Berlin, Germany. Mainly interested in animal welfare and nuclear security. Member of the EA & Consulting Network. Academic background in mathematics and political science. Worked as journalist before. LinkedIn article about his donations: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/doing-good-consultant-felix-werdermann/

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Joseph Pusey
Doctor @ National Health Service

I currently work as a doctor near Manchester, England. Right now, I'm working on completing my Foundation training and deciding what I want to do with the rest of my career. Possible candidates, outside of continuing in clinical medicine, are jobs in operations or research at EA-aligned Global Health and Wellbeing organisations, and I'm excited about opportunities in these fields.

I've been involved with EA through volunteering and working for One for the World, attending EAG 2022, the Cause Innovation Bootcamp, the Hi-Med fellowship, and (most importantly) my GWWC pledge to GiveDirectly. 

Qualy the lightbulb
Mascot

Official Unofficial EA mascot. I'm here to write footnotes and maximise utility, and I'm all out of hedonium

Ollie Etherington
Software Engineer @ Centre for Effective Altruism
Oxford, UK

Web developer at the Centre for Effective Altruism primarily focusing on the EA forum. I previously worked in chess programming, and before that as a musician and music teacher. Aside from EA, my interests include Rachmaninoff, Star Trek and the Evans gambit.

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Leo Arruda
Community strategy coordinator @ Condor Camp
Bela Vista, São Paulo - SP, Brasil

Community building at Condor Camp project, ex-manager of charity evaluator Doebem, Co-founder of EA Sao Paulo (2015)

How I can help others

Community building in Brazil

Cause and charity evaluation in Brazil

AxellePB

Axelle Playoust-Braure is a freelance science journalist, currently living in France. Before doing journalism, she graduated from a master degree in sociology and feminist studies at the university of Quebec in Montreal. She has been involved in animal advocacy since 2014 and has been specifically interested in effective animal advocacy since the launch of EA France in 2016. Her goal as a journalist is to cover important and neglected issues related to animal welfare, applied rationality and long-termism.

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Rik
Founder @ Give For Good
Vredenburg 40, 3511 BD Utrecht, Netherlands

Founder of Give For Good, a new charity donation platform that aims to provide charities with a stable, annual source of income.

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Posts in this space are about

Effective givingDonation pledgeDonation choicePublic givingDonation matchingCharity evaluationDonor lotteriesEA Giving Tuesday