EZ#1

The world of Zakat is really infuriating/frustrating. There is almost NO accountability/transparency demonstrated by orgs which collect and distribute zakat - they don't seem to feel any obligation to show what they do with what they collect. Correspondingly, nearly every Muslim I've spoken to about zakat/effective zakat has expressed that their number 1 gripe with zakat is the strong suspicion that it's being pocketed or corruptly used by these collection orgs.

Given this, it seems like there's a really big niche in the market to be exploited by an EA-aligned zakat org. My feeling at the moment is that the org should focus on, and emphasise, its ability to be highly accountable and transparent about how it stores and distributes the zakat it collects.

The trick here is finding ways to distribute zakat to eligible recipients in cost-effective ways. Currently, possibly only two of the several dozen 'most effective' charities we endorse as a community would be likely zakat-compliant (New Incentives, and Give Directly), and even then, only one or two of GiveDirectly's programs would qualify.

This is pretty disappointing, because it means that the EA community would probably have to spend quite a lot of money either identifying new highly effective charities which are zakat-compliant, or start new highly-effective zakat complaint orgs from scratch.

I thought this recent study in JAMA Open on vegan nutrition was worth a quick take due to its clever and legible study design:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812392 

This was an identical twin study in which one twin went vegan for eight weeks, and the other didn't. Nice results on some cardiometabolic lab values (e.g., LDL-C) even though the non-vegan twin was also upping their game nutritionally. I don't think the fact that vegan diets generally improve cardiometabolic health is exactly fresh news, but I find the study design to be unusually legible for nutritional research.

Bumping a previous EA forum post: Key EA decision-makers on the future of EA, reflections on the past year, and more (MCF 2023).

This post recaps a survey about EA 'meta' topics (eg., talent pipelines, community building mistakes, field-building projects, etc.) that was completed by this year's Meta Coordination Forum attendees. Meta Coordination Forum is an event for people in senior positions at community- and field-building orgs/programs, like CEA, 80K, and Open Philanthropy's Global Catastrophic Risk Capacity Building team. (The event has previously gone by the name 'Leaders Forum.')

This post received less attention than I thought it would, so I'm bumping it here to make it a bit more well-known that this survey summary exists. All feedback is welcome!

There is still plenty of time to vote in the Donation Election. The group donation pot currently stands at around $30,000. You can nudge that towards the projects you think are most worthwhile (plus, the voting system is fun and might teach you something about your preferences). 

Also- you should donate to the Donation Election fund if: 
a) You want to encourage thinking about effective donations on the Forum.
b) You want to commit to donating in line with the Forum's preferences. 
c) You'd like me to draw you one of these bad animals (or earn one of our other rewards): 

NB: I can also draw these animals holding objects of your choice. Or wearing clothes. Anything is possible. 

Last month unlimited Manifold Markets currency redemptions for donations are assured: https://manifoldmarkets.notion.site/The-New-Deal-for-Manifold-s-Charity-Program-1527421b89224370a30dc1c7820c23ec

Recommend redeeming donations this month since there are orders of magnitude more currency outstanding than can be donated in future months