Thanks Julian! But that's a question for 80,000 Hours 😀 If I get an invite, I'll let you know!

Thanks Imma, great question!

It's true that our donation distribution at Giving What We Can (GWWC) follows a 'heavy-tailed' pattern. According to our most recent impact evaluation, less than 1% of our donors contribute about 50% of our recorded donations.

Yet, I would stress that this doesn't paint the complete picture of our impact. Although this less-than-1% represents a small-to-medium group of larger donors, the other half of our donations, spread among tens of thousands of other donors, is no less crucial.

Here's some reasons why:

• Direct impact of these donations: Each of us has an opportunity to save and improve lives using our donations. That's a really important and valuable thing for people to do. It doesn't matter if someone else is able to give more, your donations still have a direct impact and together you're sharing in an even bigger collective impact.
• Reliability and diversity of funding: Donations from a broader base tend to be more consistent year to year. For instance, we experienced a surge in donations from larger donors in 2021, but then witnessed a significant drop-off in 2022-2023. Throughout these fluctuations, the regular donations from our wider community provi

Thanks Vaidehi. That's a tough one as it's often a matter of who and to what degree but generally speaking (it's probably unsurprising and I'm a bit biassed) I've most often disagreed quite strongly with the degree to which effective giving has been deprioritised or dismissed within other core-EA meta organisations.

I'm very sympathetic (downright agree with) to these parts though:

• We wouldn't want someone to turn down (or not seek out) a good fit opportunity for direct work because they got the idea that giving at a ~regular pledger level is more impactful in expectation than a high-impact good fit direct work role.
• We don't want EA to be equated with giving and the "EA is earning to give" meme is not good for the community.
• Donations are heavy-tailed (most donation $ will come from a smaller number of large donors).
• Longtermist giving is more evaluation constrained, riskier, and harder to make good recommendations for donors.

However, I do think that at time's it has got to a pretty extreme level of aversion to talking about giving as a path to impact. That being said I'm seeing many people change their tune over the last 6 months as the funding constraints (experienced by many others) have started to hit them more personally.

The other one that comes to mind is the importance of things like governance and being leligibly good and seen as “safe” from from the outside. Views on this seem to be evolving more recently too. 

Thanks Akhil! Fostering a new generation of leaders in the EA community is something I think about often, and it's something I feel is critical for the continued growth and impact of EA principles.

Firstly, I wholeheartedly agree that we need a more diverse and broad group of people in leadership positions within the community. 

Here are some ways I try:

• Promoting a wide array of voices: At GWWC, we regularly highlight various members of our community through our member stories and ambassador program. This helps spotlight the work and ideas of individuals who might not otherwise have a platform, while also broadening the range of voices and perspectives being heard.
• Hiring diversely and inclusively: We hire from anywhere that has an internet connection and give weight towards candidates who can bring fresh and unique perspectives to our work. We also prioritise providing employee benefits that help retain and nurture talent.
• Facilitating opportunity and growth: When I become aware of opportunities such as job openings, speaking events, or grant possibilities, I proactively refer individuals who I believe are suitable. I aim to open doors for those who might otherwise be overlooked,

Good question Vaidehi 😀 

There've been times when I've felt somewhat out of place within the EA community, particularly in spaces (physical or virtual) heavily dominated by top-tier university graduates (with economics, philosophy, or science PhDs) who are from/based in UK/US hub cities. Similarly, when I've been in spaces where people have doubled down hard on a particularly narrow worldview or set of conclusions that I think reasonable people would disagree with them on.

However, I've found that the EA community is wonderfully diverse in the corners where I've spent most of my time, filled with people from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences who have a variety of worldviews. Although I fit into many of the stereotypical demographics myself – male, white, in my thirties, university-educated – it's these moments of discomfort that remind me of the importance of striving for a more inclusive community.

In fact, these feelings of being out of place are often a wake-up call. They remind me that others might be feeling the same way or even more so, and that helps fuel my commitment to making our community as inclusive as possible. After all, our collective impact will only be m... (read more)

(This can include current and former team members)

Annie 🐈‍⬛

(First up: You've done a great job on podcasts and presentations too! Would love for you to share what you've learned below. Would also any other comments/perspectives from other readers.)

Thanks Johannes for the question (especially because I'm keen on helping people to advocate and communicate more)!

While it is true that I think about it a lot, I've gotta say that we have definitely not not figured this out, and that really keeps me up at night. I think we (me personally, GWWC specifically, and EA in general) are a long way from being exceptional at communicating EA ideas.

For example, a tension often exists between sparking initial interest, where intriguing, counterintuitive concepts like earning to give tend to shine, and cultivating deep understanding, which is often best achieved via a Socratic style of discourse — engaging individuals on their terms and building upon shared values. There's a similar tension between conveying depth nuance verses simple repeatable ideas.

I worked with Geetanjali Basarkod and Matti Wilks (with more help from others) on this guide to talking about effective altruism and effective giving which goes into great detail and also leverages research.

Off ... (read more)

Thanks for asking! We need to raise roughly ~£2.4m between now and December to reach our target runway through to March 2025 with our current budget. There are plenty of things we're not doing (e.g. hiring more research capacity, fundraisers, or a country manager in key locations like the UK) due to funding constraints.

Programs we house like the Charity Elections program are fundraised for separately too and have struggled to get funding through the limited number of sources for this kind of work.

Additionally, we'd love to be in a position to do more active grantmaking in setting up or scaling up new effective giving organisations (e.g. launching in new markets).

I also wrote some more details in my response to Vaidehi's question 😀 

--

If anyone would like to support our work, you can do so here and I'd be more than happy to chat on a call or respond to questions here on by email (luke at givingwhatwecan.org).

We’ll send a replacement if you lose it! 😀 We'd much rather you wear it and risk losing it than keep it in a sock drawer for fear of losing it!

If that happens just shoot us an email :) 

I started mostly in global health and then included some animal welfare. The vast majority of my donation in the past ~6 years has been EA/EG meta. Especially boring stuff that no one else wants to pay for (e.g. paying for accounting, audit and legal fees for an effective giving or community building organisation) but I find the multiplier mindset satisfying. That's mostly been EA Australia and Giving What We Can. I've also sponsored a lot of giving games and charity elections.

Other than that I have a mix of more direct organisations I support (e.g. GFI, AMF) on a regular(ish) basis. These also make it much easier for me to have entry level discussions about effective giving with people as a donor myself.

As another form of advocacy I quite like giving donations as gifts, thank yous, or follow ups (donating to something on someone's behalf after having a conversation with them about it).

Finally I'll often backstop or seed things with personal funds when I have high context (e.g. EAGxAustralia conferences, donor matching campaigns, early stage projects) so that they happen regardless but I hope another donor will step in or a grant will come through.

If I was less high context specifi... (read more)