Multiple Cause-Neutral Charity Evaluators

November 26th, 2013
ea
The Effective Altruism movement is currently closely connected to GiveWell because it is the only organization that's trying to answer the question "where can my money do the most good?" Unfortunately, when people don't agree with GiveWell's values this tight connection can lead them to reject the whole idea of evaluating charities on outcomes and comparing across causes. While I think GiveWell's values and outlook are very reasonable, founding additional charity evaluators trying to answer the same basic question from the perspective of different value systems would be very useful.

(The closest I currently see to this is Effective Animal Activism. It's a charity evaluator for people who think animals matter a lot. [1] Their current evidence is not very strong [2] but I'm excited about the experiments they're running now (though I do have some concerns) and did some volunteer surveying for them.)


[1] GiveWell's view on animals is "We also place value on reducing animal's suffering, though our guess is that the type of suffering animals experience is of a kind that we would not weigh as heavily as the type of suffering that humans experience." I would go farther, and say that I'm not sure the type of suffering animals experience matters at all.

[2] They are based on surveys which I have found various problems with, primarily missing control groups.

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Food Fridays: The Joy of Vegan Baking

My secret to delicious vegan baking is the book The Joy of Vegan Baking.

via Thing of Things December 26, 2025

Opinionated takes on parenting

This post is a collection of parenting takes that sometimes go through my head, based on my experience raising our two boys (5 and 2 years old). All of this is based on my experience and might not apply to others (see the law of equal and opposite advice)…

via Victoria Krakovna December 16, 2025

How to Make a Christmas Wreath

Yesterday, I made a Christmas wreath. Here's how to make one. First, find an evergreen tree near your house. Clip off a few branches from the tree. Try to have as many leaves or needles on the branches as possible. Next, bring them home. What I usu…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts December 6, 2025

more     (via openring)