Hello!
This newsletter is unusual; most of it features different charities and their approaches to effective altruism. Highlights include:
You might also be interested in exploring other charities, including the winners in a recent Donation Election on the EA Forum. And if you're donating this year, consider sharing where you donated and why!
We also discuss news (like the WHO's faster-than-expected prequalification of the new malaria vaccine and recent events at OpenAI), research updates, and announcements — including three upcoming EA conferences, a new incubation program for effective giving initiatives, a course on AI alignment, jobs, and more.
— Lizka, for the EA Newsletter Team
P.S. To those of you who donated to effective charities or put some of your energy into trying to make the world a better place in 2023 — thank you so much.
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Featured charities and approaches
We can increase our odds of starting high-impact charities (lead exposure as a case study)
Exposure to tiny amounts of lead can lower a child’s IQ by 1-6 points, shorten their lifespan, and more. People know that lead is harmful, but few are aware of just how widespread the problem is; 1 out of every 3 children worldwide has unsafe blood lead levels. And the global toll is catastrophic. Can charities help?
In a recent podcast episode, Lucia Coulter discusses the Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP), which she co-founded in 2020. LEEP identifies and alerts communities that are unwittingly being exposed to lead paint, and provides support to local governments and producers as they transition to lead-free paint.
Their track record is remarkable. LEEP's first program helped over 200,000 children in Malawi, and they’re now running programs in 10 different countries. (Part of their success is due to how neglected the area is; few people are working on lead exposure in poor countries, so there are " low-hanging" but critical actions LEEP can take. For instance, Coulter shares that in many cases, governments and producers didn't need much persuading to enforce lead paint bans — they only needed information.) Overall, LEEP seems extremely cost-effective; for every $2 you donate to LEEP, you’ll prevent lead poisoning for one child.
Coulter didn't stumble into lead exposure — she applied to a 2020 charity incubation program run by Charity Entrepreneurship (CE), for which CE researchers had pre-selected eight promising charity ideas. As a participant, Lucia Coulter picked one of the eight ideas, paired up with a cofounder, refined the plan, and got LEEP off the ground with training and $60K in seed funding from CE.
Charity Entrepreneurship incubates 5-8 charities every year, and the charities they launch have a strong track record. If you want to support new charities that are likely to achieve a lot of good, consider donating to CE’s Incubated Charities Fund (see their 2024 charity ideas) or to individual charities they’ve launched.
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Farmed animal welfare is neglected, but some charities are making important progress
In 2023, farmed animal welfare advocates got 130 companies to agree to stop using battery cages in the coming years. Corporate pledges like these are a tested approach that is expected to help a huge number of animals; if companies implement the changes they promised, the ~ 3000 pledges secured to date would reduce the suffering of around 800 million chickens alive at any time. (Around 90% of the pledges that have come due by last year have been fully implemented.)
This progress and some other wins were achieved by a handful of animal advocacy organizations that could accomplish more if they were less funding-constrained. (The total annual budget of all organizations that try to promote farmed animal welfare is estimated to be a bit over $200 million. For context, over $1 billion annually is spent on animal shelters in the US, supporting significantly fewer animals. As a different reference, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had a budget of over $300 million last year.)
If you're interested in donating, consider The Humane League, which seems highly cost-effective (it's responsible for many of the corporate pledges discussed above), and has shared some information about its funding gap. Another option is the EA Funds Animal Welfare Fund, which has a strong track record and not enough funding. |
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Some donation options are less direct but might achieve more
Researchers have argued that giving to expert-led charitable funds is often more effective than supporting individual charities. Fund managers’ expertise and resources mean that donations tend to be used more effectively, and recipient organizations might benefit from the consistency and additional support that funds can provide.
Three new cause-area funds were recently announced by Giving What We Can: the Global Health and Wellbeing Fund, the Effective Animal Advocacy Fund, and the Risks and Resilience Fund. They’ve also highlighted some older funds that have a strong track record.
Supporting “effective giving initiatives,” which focus on raising money for high-impact opportunities, might be another way to get more out of your donations. Giving What We Can (GWWC), for instance, seems to generate around $30 for highly effective charities per $1 spent on its operations, has encouraged thousands to pledge to give 10% of their lifetime income, and supports a variety of other projects. Some other effective giving initiatives operate primarily outside of English-speaking countries, like Effektiv Spenden, Ayuda Efectiva, and Doneer Effectief.
You could also try to start a new effective giving initiative. If you're interested, consider applying to a new charity incubation program co-run by Charity Entrepreneurship and GWWC with this purpose. ( Apply by 14 January.)
There are more exciting organizations than we can discuss here
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In other news
- PEPFAR (an HIV/AIDS program that has saved millions of people) is at risk.
- The malaria R21 vaccine has been prequalified by the WHO, earlier than expected. See also this reflection from an advocate.
- The European Commission backed out of important animal welfare commitments.
- (See AI-related news below.)
Writing and research
News related to AI
There's been a lot of media coverage of and confusion about the firing and reinstatement of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman. To recap, the decision to remove Altman seems to have been precipitated by some board members’ beliefs that Altman had misrepresented them during his attempt to remove a different board member (who’d co-authored a paper that was critical of OpenAI). After serious backlash, the board negotiated and agreed that Altman would return as CEO (but not as a board member) and on a new board (which consists of 2 new appointees and 1 of the board members who’d originally voted to fire Altman). You can also read some discussion on the events’ outcomes, as well as a discussion of how to interpret leaks in the media.
Also:
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Resources
Links we share every time — they're just that good!
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Jobs
Featured jobs
Anthropic
ARC Evals (now "METR")
BlueDot Impact
Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA)
Founders Pledge
Giving What We Can
Our World in Data (OWID)
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Announcements
Announcements related to AI safety risk-reduction efforts:
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Organizational Updates
You can see updates from a wide range of organizations on the EA Forum.
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Timeless classic: should we be private with our donations?
An essay from 2021 argues that sharing our donations publicly can help promote (effective) giving, and suggests that we should overcome our urge towards keeping donations private.
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We hope you found this edition useful!
If you’ve taken action because of the Newsletter and haven’t taken our impact survey, please do — it helps us improve future editions.
Finally, if you have feedback for us, positive or negative, let us know!
– The Effective Altruism Newsletter Team |
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